<산림청> "Overcoming Decline in Forest Product Exports through Strengthened Non-Face-to-Face and Online Promotions"

Comparison Data of Domestic Wild Edible Plant Exports in 2019 and 2020. Provided by the Korea Forest Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Due to the impact of COVID-19, the export of forest products also showed sluggish results last year. This year, the Korea Forest Service plans to resolve the export slump by strengthening non-face-to-face and online promotions in line with the rapidly changing domestic and international distribution and consumption trends of forest products caused by COVID-19.

On the 10th, Choi Byung-am, Deputy Director of the Korea Forest Service, announced the "2021 Forest Products Export Promotion Measures" at the Government Complex Daejeon.

The forest products export promotion measures focus on replacing and pioneering the offline market, which has been stagnant due to COVID-19, with non-face-to-face and online markets to enhance the export capacity of domestic forest products.

Last year, the export value of domestic forest products was $380 million, a 6.6% decrease compared to the previous year. This was due to reduced demand caused by COVID-19, increased logistics costs, and a short-term decrease in forest product production due to the monsoon season. Above all, these adverse conditions are expected to be difficult to improve significantly this year as well.

Accordingly, the Korea Forest Service is promoting measures to increase the proportion of non-face-to-face and online exports of forest products in response to the current export environment where e-commerce is becoming active.

The core strategy is to expand forest product promotion by utilizing various new media such as online communication networks and live commerce (real-time broadcast sales) according to consumer purchasing ranges, and to pursue differentiated marketing based on the maturity of online markets by country.

In particular, the Korea Forest Service aims to expand domestic and international consumer market entry by establishing quality standards for forest products through the development of the national integrated forest product brand "K-Forest Food." The government plans to increase the scale of the export market by enhancing consumer trust with forest products selected and guaranteed by the government.

To this end, the Korea Forest Service will establish strict management regulations and systematic quality evaluation standards and allow the use of the K-Forest Food brand only for forest products that meet these standards. This year, the K-Forest Food brand will be available for 10 items: astringent persimmon, shiitake mushroom, chestnut, jujube, bracken, matsutake mushroom, walnut, aster scaber, balloon flower root, and deodeok.

In line with this, the Korea Forest Service plans to minimize trial and error by export companies by utilizing K-Forest supporters to regularly check and provide information on country-specific online channels, product trends, and overseas market information.

Additionally, the Korea Forest Service will support forest product exporters' entry into major overseas online malls such as Amazon and Alibaba, online exhibitions and consultation meetings, and focus on discovering and utilizing online promotional strategies activated by COVID-19, such as identifying suitable influencers and video streaming services for forest product promotion.

Furthermore, the Korea Forest Service plans to support the expansion of forest product exports through measures such as regional export hub development of specialized forest product export facilities, strengthening export activation support systems mediated by export-leading organizations, supporting overseas market entry through the development of promising products such as processed forest product home meal replacements (HMR), and expanding free trade agreement (FTA) partner countries and providing strategic overseas market entry information.

Choi Byung-am, Deputy Director of the Korea Forest Service, said, "This year, the Korea Forest Service will strengthen support for forest product export promotion through non-face-to-face and online methods," adding, "We will do our best to ensure that this leads to an increase in quality jobs and improved income for forest households."

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