Chile becomes the first South American country to achieve the implementation of ePhytos with South Korea
As Frutas de Chile announced in a statement, this January 01, 2024, the ePhyto or Electronic Phytosanitary Certification between Korea and Chile began to take effect, allowing both countries to take advantage of all the benefits that the initiative entails to facilitate trade and improve management. of plant health.
“Chile becomes the first South American country to have the electronic phytosanitary certification approved with South Korea, since this country is working with this system, in addition to Chile, only with Thailand, the European Union and China,” Miguel revealed. Canala-Echeverría, general manager of Frutas de Chile.
no more paper
The executive explains that “with the implementation of ePhytos, the sending of paper certificates to the destination port is eliminated, as well as the loss of documents, reissuance due to changes in ports, importers or others. In addition, these certificates provide greater security, since adulterated documents are avoided, benefiting traceability and responding more quickly to unforeseen events that may arise during the export process."
Canala-Echeverría highlighted that this achievement in Korea is key to advancing the implementation of ePhytos for shipments of Chilean fruits in all destination markets. “Today, there are markets such as the United States, Canada and the Middle East where 100% of our exports are made using electronic phytosanitary certification, while only 13% of shipments are made under this system in the Far East. Achieving the implementation of ePhyto in 100% of the destination markets could mean savings for the sector in the order of USD 100 million annually.”
Public – private achievement
Likewise, the representative of Frutas de Chile observed: “We want to thank and highlight the important work of the professionals of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Chilean embassy in Korea and its attaché office, and the professionals of the Agricultural and Livestock Service, to materialize this initiative . Likewise, we believe that the first official visit of the Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, in the month of October 2023 to this country, and in which we were invited to participate, was key to expediting the implementation of this system with Korea; meeting with the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency of Korea (APQA), headed by its director Koh, Kyung Bong, in addition to professionals Baer Hyung; Ra Youn-Kyoung; Lee Byoung-Guan and Jun OK-Kyoung. We also met with the Commissioner of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (MAFRA) of Korea, JungHee Kim.”
Advancement in certification
For his part, Rodrigo Astete, deputy director of SAG, in an interview with Frutas de Chile, indicated: “We are going to start with an initial model, keeping a paper copy of the certificate for greater security of the operation for up to 6 months, along with the ePhyto, while the proposal submitted by the SAG on the use of a Contingency Procedure in the event of possible transmission problems is reviewed. Electronic certification brings great advantages for exports. It provides security to our exports, reduces the costs of sending documentation, as well as significantly reduces all administrative aspects for sending documentation, providing greater security to the certification of our export fruit.”
A quick achievement
Astete also revealed that the implementation of ePhyto between Chile and Korea “was achieved in less than a year of work between both phytosanitary agencies,” all of which would reflect the good relations existing between both countries and their phytosanitary agencies.
Rodrigo Astete also reported that on November 30, 2023, a last technical meeting was held with APQA professionals in Seoul, definitively agreeing on the start of the ePhyto between Chile and Korea, which was notified to the director of SAG. , José Guajardo, through the official letter signed by Kyung Bong Koh, director of the APQA Export Management Division/Department.
The technical visit of the SAG was led by Rodrigo Robles, ECert coordinator of the Operations Subdirectorate Division and consisted of a visit to the offices of the Incheon Airport, where it was possible to visualize what the SAG is looking for and working to integrate the work with Korea and Asia.
Regarding this last visit, Chile's agricultural and commercial attaché in Korea, José Miguel Sepúlveda, commented: “It was a very fruitful visit, since it was part of the 8th round of negotiations of the Chile – Korea FTA, an occasion in which we reiterated "the importance of our commercial relations and that the electronic certification tool is essential to further strengthen this joint work of more than 20 years, starting a new stage between both nations."
Certification and Exports
According to information from the Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG), the Communiqué concludes, during the year 2023 this entity issued 3.916 phytosanitary certificates to Korea, with table grapes being the main exported product.
Meanwhile, according to statistics from Frutas de Chile, during the 2022-2023 season, Chile sent more than 33 thousand tons of fresh fruits to South Korea. Of this amount, 51% were table grapes, 20% cherries, 16% lemons, 10% blueberries, and 2% avocados, in addition to kiwis and oranges. While, currently, the entry of fresh Chilean plums is being negotiated.
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