Korea Customs Service Supports SMEs and Small Business Owners in 'Origin Verification Response'

The Korea Customs Service (KCS) will provide support for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small business owners in responding to 'origin verification.'

Starting from the 13th, the KCS announced the launch of the 'Origin Verification Response Support Project.' Origin verification is an administrative procedure where the customs authorities of the importing country verify whether imported goods applying for preferential tariffs under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) meet the origin requirements, and exclude preferential tariff application if the requirements are not met.

The support project aims to help SMEs and small business owners, who are vulnerable to origin verification, to utilize FTAs stably and secure export competitiveness.

Selected companies for support will receive consulting services where customs brokers visit the companies directly to assist with the necessary preparations for origin verification.

The main consulting contents include how to prepare and store origin certification documents, how to create an origin verification response manual, conducting mock origin verifications and deriving improvement plans, utilizing the origin management system (FTA-PASS), and methods for origin-certified exporter certification.

The origin management system is a system developed and freely distributed by the KCS and the Korea Origin Information Service to help companies manage FTA origin matters easily and systematically, including origin determination, certificate issuance, and document storage.

Origin-certified exporters are exporters certified by the Commissioner of the KCS who are granted the authority to issue origin certificates (such as under the Korea-European Union FTA, Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Korea-United Kingdom FTA, etc.) or benefits such as simplified document submission when issuing certificates through institutions.

This year’s support targets and scale are similar to last year’s. However, this year, companies that have been finally selected for the Financial Services Commission’s ‘Innovation Premier 1000 Project’ upon recommendation by the KCS will be given priority, and the selection criteria for small business owners have been relaxed, among other differences.

The support project will be conducted at six customs offices nationwide, including Seoul, Busan, Incheon, Daegu, Gwangju, and Pyeongtaek. Consulting costs will be supported differentially up to a maximum of 2 million KRW based on the consulting evaluation grade per company and company size (based on last year’s sales).

Companies wishing to participate in the support project can apply through the KCS FTA Portal website from the 24th of this month to the 7th of next month. For more details, please refer to the announcements on the KCS website and the FTA Portal website.

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