Korea Customs Service releases transit export statistics by country for the first time… says 77% were Chinese products.
Rep. Park Soo-young of the People Power Party: “Strengthening enforcement is crucial.”
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Rep. Park Soo-young of the People Power Party, ‘It has been confirmed that over 2 trillion won worth of Chinese products have been brought into the country this year, relabeled, and exported as Korean products. Amid increasing pressure from the second Trump administration on trade barriers with China, there is concern that Korea has become a transit export route for China.’,
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, ‘According to the report on illegal transit export cases received from the Korea Customs Service by Rep. Park Soo-young of the People Power Party on the 28th, there have been 17 cases of relabeling Chinese products as Korean this year from January to August, valued at 2.068 trillion won. This is a sevenfold increase compared to the total value of 295 billion won for similar cases last year.’,
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, ‘The number of cases where Chinese products were caught while being exported through Korea to other countries has surged over the years: 15 cases worth 43.3 billion won in 2020, 13 cases worth 42.7 billion won in 2021, and 21 cases worth 210.4 billion won in 2022. Although the figures decreased in 2023 with 14 cases worth 118.8 billion won and in 2024 with 8 cases worth 29.5 billion won, they have surged again this year. Over the past six years, the total value of cases where Chinese products were mislabeled as Korean totals 6.515 trillion won, accounting for 77% of all detected transit export cases totaling 8.382 trillion won across countries during the same period.’,
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, ‘Transit export is a method where goods are first sent to a transit country from the country of origin to apply lower tariffs before exporting them to their final destination. This is the first time the Korea Customs Service has disclosed the number of cases and amounts of transit export violations by country, according to Rep. Park Soo-young’s office.’,
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, ‘In particular, cases of relabeled exports where the final destination is the US have seen a significant increase in both frequency and value this year. In 2020, only 4 cases worth 6.8 billion won were caught en route to the US, and last year accounted for only 21.7 billion won (with 62.4% of end destinations being the US). However, from January to August this year alone, the figure has reached 349.4 billion won, making up 97.9% of the total. Rep. Park Soo-young analyzed that “77% of the seized transit export goods from 2020 to this year are Chinese products,” and given the high tariffs of 30% imposed by the US due to the US-China trade conflict, a significant majority of transit export goods headed to the US are Chinese.”,
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