Fruit imports to South Korea have grown on average 12.5 per cent a year since the country began signing free trade agreements in 2003, reports the Korea Herald.
Korea’s fruit imports increased 3.3 times in terms of value and 1.5 times in terms of volume, according to a trend analysis by the Korea Customs Service cited by the Herald.
The overall value of the fruit import market grew from US$286m in 2003 to US$929m in 2013, with more than 90 per cent of Korea’s fruit imports coming from FTA nations including the US, Chile and Peru.
The biggest imports were oranges (39.4 per cent of volumes), bananas (31.8 per cent) and grapes (20.3 per cent), and the last decade has seen a rise in imports of lemons, mangoes and grapefruit.
Korea’s fruit exports, meanwhile, more than doubled in ten years, totalling US$120m in 2013, largely due to exports of strawberries and persimmons.
