Republic of Korea: Plan to increase the competitiveness of strawberry production

On 14 June 2014, the Ministry of Agriculture, Foods and Rural Affairs announced a development plan for Korean strawberry producers. According to the plan, a total of 838 billion KRW (ca. 761 million USD) shall be spent for the industry over the next 8 years. Of the total, 600 billion KRW shall be contributed by the government. The remaining 240 billion KRW shall be contributed by the participants themselves. The ministry motivates this intervention as follows: “Through this comprehensive promotion plans, we aim to boost the competitiveness of Korean strawberry industry and to increase the strawberry exports to 100 million USD from 30 million USD.”