'Russian Origin → Chinese Origin' Fraudulent Preferential Tariff Applied, Seafood Importers Caught

Nine seafood import companies attempting to bring in frozen snow crabs from Russia disguised as Chinese products were caught by customs authorities. The seized frozen snow crabs are contained in packaging boxes. Photo by Korea Customs Service

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Nine companies that disguised Russian seafood as Chinese and imported it into Korea were caught by customs authorities. These companies were found to have falsely declared the origin to apply the 'Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA) preferential tariff rates.'

According to the Korea Customs Service on the 23rd, Russia does not have an FTA with Korea and is subject to a 20% tariff rate, whereas China, due to its FTA with Korea, benefits from relatively lower preferential tariff rates (9.8%~12%).

The caught companies exploited the tariff rate difference depending on the existence of an FTA by falsely declaring Russian seafood as Chinese.

The seafood these companies imported into Korea mainly included frozen snow crab and dried pollock strips, with habitats along the North Pacific coasts such as the United States and Russia, and the North Atlantic coasts such as Norway and Canada.

However, at the time of import declaration, they falsely declared the seafood as Chinese origin to bring it into Korea.

The Korea Customs Service recently found this suspicious as the volume of seafood imported as Chinese origin increased regardless of habitat, and upon investigation, uncovered this fact.

Among the companies caught for origin falsification, seven falsely declared Russian frozen snow crab (tariff rate 20%) as Chinese origin (tariff rate 9.8%), evading 100 million KRW in customs duties, and two companies used the same method to falsely declare Russian dried pollock strips (tariff rate 20%) as Chinese dried fish products (tariff rate 12%), evading 80 million KRW in customs duties.

Im Hyun-cheol, the Origin Support Officer at the Korea Customs Service, said, “The seafood disguised as Chinese origin was not only falsely declared in origin labeling but also had reduced freshness due to longer distribution periods (via China).”