Korea, China and Japan are experiencing more frequent outbreaks of food safety incidents in line with growing agri-food trade among them. This has intensified consumer concern about food safety. Besides, in some cases the outbreak of food safety incidents has led to diplomatic friction on top of economic ripple effect. In the wake of these developments, the voice asking for action plans to deal with this is growing stronger. The trade volume of agri-foods among the three countries is likely to rise in the years to come. The importation of Chinese agri-foods is anticipated to hike significantly considering their geographical position and price advantages. Amidst this situation, the need for closer international cooperation in securing agri-food safety is more desired than any time before for the three countries. With the clear view of this, the study has the purpose of suggesting practical action plans promoting tripartite cooperation on agri-food safety among Korea, China and Japan.
To ensure agri-food safety, trading countries are running temporary and constant cooperation schemes to resolve issues associated with imported or exported agri-foods. The temporary cooperation is mainly conducted as a reaction to incidents, while constant cooperation is consistently available regardless of the outbreak of incidents. Temporary cooperation is mainly aimed to address incidents. However, it is not achievable easily all the time and is not sufficient to effectively tackle food safety incidents. In comparison, constant cooperation is based on the existing bilateral cooperation system and trust relationship formed through previous cooperation. When food safety incidents occur, the constant cooperation system facilitates prompt reaction of relative country and the effort to strengthen food safety. Until recently, Korea, China and Japan have i) executed treaties, ii) organized cooperative councils and meetings, and iii) started exchange programs including human resources exchange as part of the endeavor to build the constant cooperative relationship regarding agri-food safety.
In the future, the existing tripartite cooperation among Korea, China and Japan in the area of agri-food safety needs to be further supported by i) the proactive approach toward agri-food safety; ii) the seeking of practical ways for cooperation on food safety; and iii) the orderly international trade based on WTO/SPS agreements, etc. In order to implement the three basic principles as above, the three countries should i) harmonize mutual institutions and standards on food safety; ii) upgrade the existing cooperative arrangements on food safety; and iii) beef up the framework to support projects requiring mutual cooperation.
Elaborating more on the four action plans listed above,. first, making three countries' institutions and standards on food safety aligned will smoothen food safety cooperation down the road. In particular, the discrepancy in the hazardous substance residue standards and the homogeneity of food safety institutions of the three countries have been consistently brought up as matters for further discussion. The standard for hazardous substance residue can be set relatively easily in reference to international standards. Contrary to this, harmonizing food safety institutions among the countries will have a considerable impact on trade so that this needs to be pursued over a long haul.
Second, the information sharing on food safety is an essential precondition to enable a country to speed up its response to food safety issue internally and to foster smooth international cooperation both in normal times and in the event of a food safety incident. Also, food safety cooperation involves various sectors of home and abroad including the government and private sector. Identifying and fine-tuning related cooperation channels is helpful in the more concrete and systematic pursuit for food safety cooperation. The inter-country channel takes longer time to be rearranged. It is understandable considering the fact that even the Korea Ministry of Agriculture, Forest, Fishery and Foods and the Korea Ministry of Health and Welfare (Korea Food and Drug Administration) establish and adjust their food safety cooperation system only when it is required by national demand and ministry-level common understanding. Therefore securing inter-country channel should be viewed as a mid/long-term project based on thorough planning. Yet, the creation of the cooperation channels between the private and public sectors and the working-level exchange on food safety are achievable within a short time.
Third, the tripartite cooperation is still in the early stage. Details are not laid out at this moment. Signing valid treaties seems to be able to lay the foundation for substantial cooperation projects. In addition, the various needs for cooperation and supporting systems should be identified and secured. To this end, i) food safety cooperation treaties should be checked for their validity and made sure that they remain valid; ii) cooperation projects should be diversified and the demand for customized mutual cooperation should be identified; and iii) local supporting system for importing country should be in place to proactively secure agri-good safety and facilitate international cooperation. The support foundation for these efforts could be established within a relatively short time. However, securing validity of food safety cooperation treaties and the construction of local support systems in an importing country demand mutual understanding of relevant countries, and for this active government engagement is necessary.


Researchers: Yun-Jae Hwang, Hyoung-Jin Jeon and Jae-Hwan Han
E-mail address: yjhwang@krei.re.kr