Busan City Conducts '2nd Special Inspection on Origin Labeling of Imported Seafood'

Inspection of Origin Labeling Violations at 1,691 Imported Seafood Handling Businesses by December 5

City-District/County-National Fisheries Quality Management Service Busan Branch, Coast Guard Officials, and About 60 Honorary Inspectors

Busan City will conduct the '2nd Special Inspection on Origin Labeling of Imported Seafood' targeting a total of 1,691 businesses handling imported seafood in Busan, including importers (36), distributors (247), and retailers (1,408), until December 5.

Busan City Conducts Second Special Inspection on Origin Labeling of Imported Seafood.

This 2nd special inspection was prepared to intensively crack down on violations of origin labeling for imported seafood, as consumer interest in the origin of imported seafood has increased due to the discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan.

Previously, from May 1 to July 18, the city conducted the 1st special inspection targeting 986 businesses handling imported seafood, detecting 7 cases of unmarked origin and 6 cases of false labeling, which were either referred to the prosecution or fined.

The 2nd special inspection will be carried out by about 60 people, including officials from each district and county of Busan City, the Busan branch of the National Fishery Products Quality Management Service, Busan Coast Guard, and 20 honorary inspectors, forming 6 to 10 joint inspection teams.

The inspection will be conducted thoroughly through a two-track approach, where the government and local governments establish an organic cooperation system to jointly inspect origin labeling on-site.

The main inspection items are compliance with the Origin Labeling Act, including ▲unmarked origin ▲violation of labeling methods ▲false labeling acts, and the key inspection items are three species: ▲live red sea bream ▲live scallops ▲live sea squirts (Meongge).

The key inspection items were determined considering import volume, major importing countries, and violation records.

Among the businesses found violating the law in this special inspection, those that falsely label the origin will face imprisonment of up to 7 years or a fine of up to 100 million KRW, and those that fail to label the origin will be fined between 50,000 KRW and 10 million KRW.

Kim Byung-gi, Director of the Marine Agriculture and Fisheries Bureau, urged, “Seafood from the eight prefectures near Fukushima is already banned from import, so seafood businesses should thoroughly label the origin in the market to enhance the reliability of distributed seafood,” adding, “Our city will also thoroughly inspect violations of origin labeling to secure citizens’ trust in seafood safety,” and said, “We will do our best to promote seafood consumption by continuing the seafood win-win discount support project until the end of the year to create a safe purchasing environment.”

To strengthen seafood safety, Busan City will add two more food and seafood radioactivity analysis devices by the second half of this year and conduct radioactivity inspections at each stage of import, production, and distribution. In addition, the city is managing the safety of seafood more meticulously and thoroughly through the imported seafood origin labeling system and distribution tracking system.

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