76% of Toy and Stationery Companies Feel Burdened by KC Certification Costs and Find the System Unreasonable

Korea Federation of SMEs Announces KC Certification Survey Results
18 Items Costing 15.46 Million KRW... Additional Heavy Metal Testing
"Measures Needed Such as Certification Fee Reduction and Validity Period Extension"

On the 1st, a day before the new semester begins, citizens visiting the stationery and toy street in Changsin-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, are purchasing school supplies. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] A survey found that 76% of toy and stationery companies feel burdened and find the KC certification system overall unreasonable.

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business announced the results of a survey on the KC certification system conducted from March 14 to April 8 targeting 205 toy and stationery companies on the 1st.

The survey results showed that, on average, the toy and stationery industry takes 2.7 months to obtain KC certification and spends 15.46 million KRW annually on 18 items, which accounts for about 3.7% of their sales.

It was revealed that 76.1% of companies feel burdened and find the KC certification system unreasonable overall, indicating strong demands from the industry for system improvement. The degree of burden and unreasonableness was reported as 'very high' by 33.2% and 'high' by 42.9%.

In particular, companies have complained about increased certification burdens due to recently strengthened regulations that added inspections for seven types of heavy metals.

About half (49.3%) of the respondents said they had to conduct additional inspections due to the newly added inspection items. The average additional cost due to the added heavy metal inspection items was 6.85 million KRW. The additional inspection period required due to the added inspection items was on average 2.2 months.

Degree of Burden and Unfairness Associated with Obtaining KC Certification

The difficulties with the KC certification system were surveyed in the order of 'burden of acquisition costs (80.0%)', 'certification burden by type and material within the same model (56.6%)', 'short validity period of five years (52.7%)', and 'burden of additional inspection items due to strengthened environmental regulations (44.4%)'.

As system improvement measures, respondents prioritized 'reduction of certification acquisition costs (78.0%)', 'assignment of existing certification numbers upon re-certification due to simple expiration (58.5%)', 'extension or abolition of the validity period (57.1%)', and 'temporary support for costs of additional inspection items (28.8%)'.

Yang Chan-hoe, Head of the Innovation Growth Division at the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, explained, "Most companies related to toys and stationery are small-scale businesses. Since product lines are diverse and certification must be obtained by material and type for each product, the certification procedures and costs are complicated and burdensome."

For example, he said that to certify a single doll, it is divided by materials such as lace and cotton, and within each material, inspections must be conducted separately by color and pattern, sometimes costing as much as 1.5 million KRW just for certification.

Yang emphasized, "To support the toy and stationery industry that must meet the more stringent KC certification standards, it is necessary to implement system improvements that clearly reduce the industry's burden, such as reducing certification costs and extending the validity period."

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