By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
Global food crises and growth in domestic demand are leading to a snowballing trade deficit in farm, dairy and fishery products.
For the first half of the year, Korea posted a $7.7 billion deficit with $9.8 billion in imports, the Korea Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation reported Wednesday.
The shortfall, up 20.6 percent from a year earlier, is almost double the size of surplus in memory semiconductors for the same period. Compared to 2007, imports and exports of those products grew 20.9 percent and 22 percent, respectively.
Grains took the biggest part at $2.4 billion, up a staggering 65 percent year-on-year.
Imports outgrew exports even in several main export items of the country. Imports of kimchi grew by 41.5 percent and ginseng by 57.5 percent, while their exports increased by 12 percent and 22.7 percent, respectively.
Chicken imports boosted by 40.2 percent during the period on the back of a huge nationwide uproar regarding U.S. beef imports, while overall beef imports also rose by 2.3 percent.
By countries, deficit with the United States was the biggest at $2.7 billion, followed by China at $1.4 billion and Australia at $0.8 billion. Deficit with the United States jumped by 97.7 percent from last year.
Korea is expected to still keep its head above water in the global food trade with the collapse of the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), of which completion could have dealt an even more severe blow to the country by forcing tariff cuts on most items.
Authorities are seeking more free trade agreements (FTAs) following the DDA breakdown.
"Now that the DDA has collapsed, we need to focus on FTAs. We aim to sign a deal with the European Union (EU) this year." A spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
While the DDA has been in stalemate since 2001, Korea has concluded FTAs with Chile, Singapore, the Association of South East Asian Nations and the United States.
Seoul has held seven rounds of negotiations with the EU since July last year, in a bid to tap into the 27-nation economic bloc, South Korea's second-largest trading partner next to China.