Dioxin fear may promote sales of Korean ginseng
Dioxin fear may promote sales of Korean ginseng
By Ahn Mi-young
SEOUL (DPA): Fears over dioxin contamination of foodstuffs will reverse the slide in the export of South Korean-grown red ginseng, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) in Seoul believes.
Medical journals in Japan and the United Kingdom carried a paper by a Korean state-run research institute that Korean red ginseng is good for protecting the human body against dioxin.
"Following the report, local exporters are suddenly submerged under foreign enquiries for ginseng, especially from Hong Kong and Europe," said Chang Seung-jin, deputy director of the vegetable & special crop division of MAF.
As a result, Korea's red ginseng exports this year are expected to rise 28 percent over 1998 to $150 million, MAF said.
The upturn comes after a slide from $164 million in 1990 to $82 million in 1998 in the export value of South Korean-grown red ginseng, the nation's largest single farm export, which is exported to some 40 nations through 500 overseas sales agencies across the world.
The decline began because "we were sitting back while Chinese and American suppliers were flooding the market with pseudo- ginseng at only one tenth or one-third the price of ours," said Joo U-sup, manager at the state Korea Ginseng corporation.
Last year, Korean red ginseng was once again flying off store shelves in Canada and the U.S. after medical experts there noted that the ginseng root could work like viagra.
"Red ginseng promotes the generation of sex hormones by relaxing physical tension and reducing stress," said Choi Hyung- ki, urology professor at Yonsei University.
But the traditional Korean herbal medicine was losing markets to new ginseng growers in Canada, China and France, due to a lack of promotion and high prices.
"We were just waiting for buyers to come, while the foreign rivals all combined marketing forces to promote theirs in the U.S. and Europe," said Yoon Jong-hoon, trade general manager at Korea Ginseng Promotion corporation, an exporter of red ginseng product.
He added that South Korean ginseng exporters can sit back as long as the three major markets - Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan - are buying more than 90 percent of Korea's total red ginseng export.
But Korean ginseng exports to these markets continue to dwindle. Besides, China is virtually denying Korean ginseng exporters market access by "slapping too high tariffs on Korean root ginseng" and "classifying ginseng products as medicine subject to import regulations," according to local ginseng exporters.
This year Seoul has been fighting back by turning to the U.S. and Europe as new outlets.
The ministry started to advertising to boost exports of the root herb, using an image of a smiling, rosy-cheeked herb.
"So far we did not promote ginseng. This year, we must advertise to sell more ginseng to Europeans and Americans, who are beginning to be interested in Oriental herbal medicine," said Chang Seung-jin, deputy director of the vegetable and special crop division of MAF.
Marketing ginseng to the West is proving a hard job, he confesses. "Europeans and Americans have little eye for the quality differences of ginseng. They would pick up whatever is the cheaper one. So our campaign should be scientifically based to appeal to the logical western mind," he added.
In Germany, Chinese ginseng is most widely sold for producing medicines. As ginseng is gaining popularity, U.S. farmers are already producing ginseng. Canadian ginseng is selling well in America.
In Korea, some 23,000 family households grow 540 tons of ginseng annually. There are some 60 ginseng exporters. Ginseng is sold in the form of cold beverages, tea, capsules and raw roots.