Shippers Must Report When Shipping Agricultural Products from Garak Market

Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation Implements Phased Measures to Enforce Shipper Reporting Obligations

[Asia Economy Reporter Jongil Park] The Seoul Agro-Fisheries & Food Corporation (President Kim Kyungho) will implement phased measures to ensure that unregistered consignors among those shipping to Garak Market comply with consignor registration.

According to Article 30 (Consignor Registration) of the Act on the Distribution and Price Stabilization of Agricultural and Fishery Products (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Agricultural Products Act’), those intending to ship agricultural products must register as consignors with the wholesale market operator.

However, consignor registration has not been properly conducted so far, causing ▲ difficulties in grasping agricultural product shipment trends ▲ difficulty in taking follow-up measures due to unknown consignor identity when residual pesticide inspections detect violations ▲ inability for buyers (consumers) to contact the consignor in cases of defective products such as underweight, significantly undermining the transparency and reliability of transactions in the wholesale market.

To address these issues, the Corporation actively encouraged consignor registration for unregistered consignors through multiple campaigns last year targeting consignees (wholesale market corporations and intermediate wholesalers) of agricultural products shipped to Garak Market.

After reviewing the consignor registration status, although the registration rate has somewhat increased, unregistered consignor transactions still persist. Therefore, the Corporation plans to enforce consignor registration compliance after an approximately two-month guidance period.

The following are the phased measures the Corporation will take to enforce consignor registration, and from April 1 onward, agricultural products from unregistered consignors will be refused acceptance. However, for unregistered consignors, consignees (wholesale market corporations and intermediate wholesalers) will be actively encouraged to register consignors on-site, and if existing consignors who are unregistered find it difficult to register themselves directly, proxy registration can be done through local agricultural cooperatives or the shipping parties (wholesale market corporations and intermediate wholesalers).

If the consignor cannot be contacted causing registration delays, a grace period of three days will be granted, after which acceptance will be refused if consignor registration is still not completed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.