G/TBT/N/KOR/769  
 
24 May 2018  
(18-3096) Page: 1/3 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
  
NOTIFICATION  
The following notification is being circulated in accordance with Article 10.6  
 
1. Notifying Member: REPUBLIC OF KOREA   
If applicable, name of local government involved (Article 3.2 and 7.2):   
2. Agency responsible: Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA)  
Name and address (including telephone and fax numbers, email and website 
addresses, if available) of agency or authority designated to handle comments 
regarding the notification shall be indicated if different from above:   
Environment -Friendly Agriculture Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural 
Affairs (MAFRA)  
Tel.: +82 -44-201-2432, 2433  
Fax: +82 -44-868-0483 
E-mail: llty@korea.kr  
3. Notified under Article 2.9.2 [X], 2.10.1 [  ], 5.6.2 [  ], 5.7.1 [  ], other:  
4. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff 
heading. ICS numbers may be provided in addition, where applicable): 
Environment -friendly agricultural and fishery products, processed organic foods and 
materials for organic farming.  
5. Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document: Proposed 
Amendments to the act on Promotion of Environment -friendly Agri culture and Fisheries, 
and Management of and Support for Organic Foods. (33 page(s), in Korean)   
6. Description of content:  
The main amended contents in this document are as follows:  
A. Revision of the terms, "environment -friendly agriculture and fisheries " and "organic " 
(Article 2(draft))  
 - Revise the definitions of the terms, "environment -friendly agriculture and fisheries " and 
"organic, " focusing on agricultural environmental conservation, including the promotion of 
biodiversity and maintenanc e of healthy ecosystems, the objectives of environment -
friendly agriculture and fisheries.   
B. Addition of qualifications for the application for certification of organic food, etc. (Article 
20(draft))  
- A person whose products exceed the maximum residue l imits of pesticides, by intention 
or gross negligence, and a person subject to a disposition of revocation three times shall 
be prohibited from applying for certification.  
C. Addition of the suspension of qualification as certification auditors (Article 2 6-2 (draft))  
-  If an auditor fails to comply with procedures and methods of certification or re -audit by 
intention or gross negligence.  G/TBT/N/KOR/769  
 
- 2 - 
 
   - If an auditor delegates his/her certification service to the executive officer of a 
certification body, etc.  
D. Addition of grounds for disqualification of executive officers of certification bodies and 
specification of fine criteria (Article 26 -3 (draft))  
 - Executive officers of certification bodies who conducted certification duty, etc. on behalf 
of certification  auditor or anyone who is responsible for certification duty  
- The grounds for disqualification are revised to specify a fine of 1 million won or more to 
exclude a small fine.  
E.   Addition of the requirement for cancelling the designation of certification agencies 
(Article 29 (draft))  
- Revocation of the designation of a certified agency which received "poor" result for the 
three consecutive times following the evaluation on certification agencies.  
F.  The introduction of re -inspection for pr oducts confirmed to be inappropriate and organic 
agricultural materials (Articles 31 and 49(Draft))  
- Establishment of grounds and standards where re -inspection can be conducted, when 
products are inspected to be inappropriate  
G.  Ground for allowing onl y environment -friendly certified agricultural and fishery 
products and processed products to use a label using words, such as "environment 
friendly " (Article 54 -2 (draft))  
- Only environment -friendly certified agricultural and fishery products and processe d 
products are allowed to use words including "environment friendly " to build trust while 
preventing confusion and harm to the public in the use of environment -friendly agricultural 
products.    
H.   Penalty surcharge on person who repeatedly revokes certif ication; fine or penalty on 
person who publishes certification information without the consent of concerned party; and 
fine for negligence on person who failed to keep analysis information will be imposed 
(Articles 60, 62.2, and 62 (Draft))  
- Fine or penal ty will be imposed if personal information related to certification, etc. is 
leaked by a certification auditor, without the consent of the concerned party (Article 60 
(Draft))   
- Fine not exceeding 5 times of selling price will be imposed, if certification  is revoked 
more than twice within three years (Article 60.2 (Draft))  
- Fine for negligence will be imposed on failure to keep test analysis information and on 
false report of certification result (Article 62 (Draft))  
7. Objective and rationale, including the nature of urgent problems where 
applicable: Protection of human health or safety  
8. Relevant documents:  Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) Public 
Notice  No. 2017 -39 (available in Korean)   
9. Proposed date of adoption: January 2019  
Proposed date of entry into force: January 2019  
10. Final date for comments: 60 days from date of notification. Competent authority will 
receive comments for sixty days after the date of notification in order to seek possible way 
to reflect the comment into enforcing regulations of the Act sometime in the future.  G/TBT/N/KOR/769  
 
- 3 - 
 
  11. Texts available from: National enquiry point [  ] or address, telephone and fax 
numbers and email and website addresses, if available, of other body:   
Environment -Friendly Agriculture Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural 
Affairs (MAFRA)  
Tel.: +82 -44-201-2432, 2433  
Fax: +82 -44-868-0483 
E-mail: llty@korea.kr  
https://members.wto.org/crnattachments/2018/TBT/KOR/18_2617_00_x.pdf