"Bonjour Korea!" French beef is coming...Korean beef farmhouse "Nervous" [Y Record]

■ Host: Anchor Lee Jung-seop, Anchor Cho Ye-jin
■ Starring: Professor Heo Jun-young, Sogang University's Department of Economics

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN News START] when quoting.

◆ Anchor: Let's move on to the next topic. The next topic is that French beef is targeting the domestic market for the first time in 24 years since 2000?

◇ Huh Joon-young: If you go back to 2000, there was talk of beef from mad cow disease in Europe. In order for us to import beef again from countries where mad cow disease has occurred, the National Assembly must review the import hygiene conditions again. This deliberation has been made again this time. That's why among European countries, one of the EU countries, France, opened the way for beef to be imported again. France is the EU's best beef producer in terms of beef. So there are 130,000 livestock farms, 7 million cows, and 10 million beef cattle. So, it is the most dairy-related country in Europe, especially beef-related dairy, so exports are likely to come into Korea, and the market share is very low by 0.1 and 0.2%. In Korea, most imported beef accounts for 60% of the total beef market. About 90% of them are from the United States or Australia. So, I know that people who have been to the mart buy American or Australian products and eat them.

◆ Anchor: Now that I remember it, what is the reason and background of entering the domestic market this time?

◇ Heo Joon-young: First of all, there was an import that passed and France produces a lot of beef, so the French ambassador introduced it himself this time as part of the search for an export market. As such, it seems that Korea's market is viewed in terms of another export market. But the problem seems to be this. Then, considering how popular French or EU beef can be to Korean consumers, there may be a unit price problem. First, you have to bring refrigerated meat by plane, but the unit price is bound to go up. Frozen meat may come in, but the price competitiveness is not much better than that of Australian meat. In addition, I don't know much about beef, so when my wife asks me to buy beef, I usually go and buy beef with a lot of marbling. Marbling is said to be less beef than Australian or American beef. In that respect, there seems to be a story about how popular it can be with Korean consumers.

◆ Anchor: When French beef comes in, I think our Korean beef farmers and our farmers will oppose it.

◇ Huh Joon-young: That's right. Recently, there have been talks that Korean beef farmers have risen in various feed prices and are not profitable in many ways, and the number of Korean beef farmers itself has been decreasing recently. In that respect, I think we need to think about how we can coordinate policy between domestic industries and imported goods from abroad. On the other hand, I said that earlier.Ma may not be very popular right away even if French beef comes in. However, on the one hand, when it comes to consumers' options, various prices for a variety of products, these things may be better for consumers. I think it's a decision in the meantime.

Excerpted from
: Jeong Eui-jin, Editor of the Digital News Team