Gyeonggi Province to Enforce Country-of-Origin Labeling Inspections for Lunar New Year Holiday

Gyeonggi Province will conduct country-of-origin labeling inspections for agricultural and fishery products ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday across all 31 municipalities from the 16th to the 20th for five days.

Based on Article 7 of the 'Act on Country-of-Origin Labeling of Agricultural and Fishery Products,' the province plans to focus inspections on large and medium-sized distribution outlets, agricultural and fishery product sales and processing businesses, and traditional markets.

Among the 31 municipalities, five cities including Osan, Anyang, Uiwang, Goyang, and Suwon will conduct joint inspections with provincial and municipal/county inspection teams. The remaining 26 municipalities will establish their own inspection plans and conduct joint inspections together with honorary inspectors.

Key inspection targets include ▲foods for ancestral rites such as beef, pork, chicken, bracken, codonopsis, jujubes, chestnuts, croaker, cutlassfish, and Alaska pollock ▲gift items including galbi sets, fruit baskets, traditional Korean sweets, ginseng products, traditional foods, and health functional foods.

During inspections, the province will focus on identifying unlabeled country of origin, violations of labeling methods, misleading labeling, and fraudulent sales disguising imported products as domestic, as well as illegal country-of-origin distribution. Upon discovering violations including false country-of-origin labeling, measures will be taken in accordance with relevant laws.

According to applicable laws, failure to display country of origin is subject to a fine of up to 10 million won, while false labeling may result in imprisonment of up to 7 years or a fine of up to 100 million won.

An official from Gyeonggi Province's Agricultural Products and Food Distribution Division stated, "When purchasing agricultural products, please always check the country-of-origin label, and if the origin is suspected, please report it through the agricultural product fraud report hotline (agricultural products 1588-8122, marine products 1899-2112)."

Meanwhile, the province conducted country-of-origin labeling inspections at 3,113 distribution outlets ahead of last year's Lunar New Year holiday and detected 12 country-of-origin labeling violations, including one case of false labeling, across 8 municipalities in the province, resulting in criminal referrals or administrative fines.