Jeonnam Province Meets with Companies Achieving $400 Million in Agricultural Food Exports

Governor Kim Young-rok Hosts 'Export Expansion Meeting'

[Muan=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Yoon Jamin] Jeonnam Province collaborated with companies and related organizations to achieve $400 million in agricultural food exports.

On the 21st, the province announced that it held the "Jeonnam Agricultural Food $400 Million Export Expansion Meeting" with export companies and experts from related organizations to actively respond to the difficult agricultural food export situation due to COVID-19 and rapidly changing trade conditions.

At the meeting chaired by Governor Kim Young-rok of Jeonnam Province, reports on the plan to achieve $400 million in agricultural food exports were presented, along with presentations on export expansion plans by sector from the Agricultural Technology Institute of the Agriculture and Livestock Food Bureau, listening to difficulties faced by export companies, and discussions on cooperation measures among related organizations.

Various field experts in the agricultural food export sector, including related export organizations such as Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, Jeonnam Rural Convergence Industry Support Center, Nesipi F&B, Green Gaon Co., Ltd., Duwon Nonghyup, Art Farm, and Gokseong Melon, as well as export companies and producers, participated and offered their opinions.

The export value of agricultural food products from the Jeonnam region showed an average annual growth rate of 8.9% over the past five years, reaching $134 million in 2016 and $185 million in 2020.

By country, China accounted for 23.2%, the United States 15.3%, Japan 14.8%, and Taiwan 13.4%, with the top four countries making up 66.7% of the total agricultural food export value.

With the global spread of COVID-19, changes in food distribution and consumption trends, the expansion of well-being food consumption, increased awareness of Korean food (K-Food), and growth of the online food market are expected to help increase Jeonnam's agricultural food exports.

The province plans to utilize strengths and opportunities while actively responding to weaknesses and threats through a SWOT analysis of agricultural food exports.

With the goal of achieving $400 million in agricultural food exports by 2025, eight major strategies and 27 tasks will be pursued, including targeting the organic premium market, fostering promising export items and varieties, enhancing competitiveness of agricultural food processing companies, organizing export-oriented producers, aggressively developing overseas markets, establishing sales networks tailored to local conditions, strengthening support for overseas transportation costs, and alleviating export barriers.

To ensure the safety and high quality of export agricultural products, the province aims to establish 60 specialized agricultural product production complexes by 2023 and will designate additional preliminary export complexes starting this year.

To strengthen the competitiveness of small-scale food processing companies, which is a weakness of the province, plans include modernizing agricultural food manufacturing and processing facilities, expanding support for HACCP facilities, developing home meal replacement products reflecting consumer trends, and fostering promising export items such as kimchi fermented beverages, thereby establishing a stable production system to advance Jeonnam agricultural food products into the global food market.

The Agricultural Technology Institute will focus on supporting the distribution of customized varieties such as rice, strawberries, kiwi, and yuzu reflecting the demand of export markets, as well as developing technologies for cultivating and managing high-quality export agricultural products to improve productivity.

Participants unanimously agreed that "to achieve stable export growth, fostering processed foods is necessary," and emphasized the need for various export support projects such as discovering export-suitable varieties and promising items, and expanding the establishment and support of specialized agricultural product production complexes.

Governor Kim said, "If the detailed plan established under the goal of 'Namdo Food spreading worldwide' is actively promoted through cooperation among related departments, achieving $400 million in agricultural food exports by 2025 will be no problem," and added, "Please actively reflect the voices from the field by holding the Agricultural Food Export Council, which includes related organizations, export companies, and producers, twice a year."

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