"Tofu Processing Plants Face Shutdown Crisis Due to Shortage of Imported Soybeans"

[Financial News] "The tofu processing industry is facing an unprecedented crisis in which factories may have to suspend operations."
Kim Seok-won, chairman of the Gwangju–Jeonnam Processed Food Industry Cooperative, said on the 9th, "If the government delays making a decision, the damage will lead to small-business closures and higher prices for ordinary consumers."
On the same day, processed-food cooperatives from six regions across the country held a press conference at KBIZ in Yeouido, Seoul, to present the position of small and midsize businesses and small merchants facing the risk of factory shutdowns due to a shortage of imported soybeans.
The press conference was attended by chairmen and executive directors of regional tofu manufacturing cooperatives. The tofu industry urged the government to devise fundamental measures, warning that the shortage of imported soybeans ahead of Chuseok had left tofu factories on the verge of shutting down.
In particular, they called for applying a zero-percent tariff-rate quota to imported soybeans for processing and abolishing the import profit levy. They also emphasized the need to abolish the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation (aT)'s monopolistic state-run trading structure and transition to a private-sector, self-directed direct-import system centered on actual end-users.
A cooperative official urged the government, saying, "Government support policies based on mixing domestic and imported soybeans do not sufficiently reflect conditions in the field," and, "To resolve the recurring supply-and-demand instability, the government should establish a flexible supply guideline providing more than 250,000 metric tons, the actual demand."
[email protected] Kang Kyung-rae Reporter