South Korea Imported Food Policy 2022

1. Food Safety Control Amid Post-Pandemic Era

• Simplifying the submission of health certificate of fishery products by adopting E-certification.

• Easing requirements of fast clearance for planned import: a good importer can apply for fast import clearance when importing food products more than five times per year on average.

• Newly adding importer's information as part of the imported product inspection information published on the official website, which helps importers check the import inspection result conveniently.

2. Contactless Inspection of Foreign Food Facility/ Foreign Establishments

• Conducting sanitation inspection on foreign food facilities and foreign establishments by on-site inspection and remote inspection (video audit) parallelly.

3. Imported Food HACCP Certification System

• Mandatory HACCP certificate² for overseas Kimchi factories exporting 5,000 to 10,000 tons Kimchi to South Korea in 2020, is to be enforced on October 1, 2022.

4. Import Sanitation Assessment for Livestock Products

• Simplifying the assessment on countries with assessment history and focusing on those without.

• Cooperating with the exporting country’s government in conducting the sanitation assessment.

5. National Residue Management Program (NRP)

• Requiring exporting countries of livestock products (63 countries in total) to conduct residue tests for the products and submit results to MFDS by June 30, 2022.

6. Import Inspection

• Fully implementing detailed inspection on imported food without random sampling inspection records in five years.

• Allowing good importers to apply for fast customs clearance application at the beginning of every month instead of the previous annual application.  

7. Mutual Recognition of Electronic Health Certificate

• Establishing mutual recognition system between South Korea and other countries to directly send and receive data, with the purpose of involving more countries in the mutual recognition of electronic health certificate and simplifying the import and export procedure.

8. “Use-by date” Label

• Promulgating a series of new regulations regarding the use-by date label: Standard of Setting Use-By Date of Food, Guideline on Test Methods for Setting Use-By Date, etc.

9. Safety Control of Imported Food at the Distribution Stage

• Enhancing management on food importers with noncompliance records and  without inspection records.

• Intensifying the inspection on imported food likely to pose a risk to the public health. 

• Establishing a safety control system of food products directly purchased from overseas by consumers.