The South Korean government will officially announce Friday its plan to liberalize the rice market, officials said on Thursday.

Lee Dong-phil, minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, will make the announcement following an economic ministers’ meeting.

But the minister reportedly will not propose detailed tariff rates on rice imports, as it require the approval of other members of the World Trade Organization, according to officials.

The government has long been expected to liberalize the market, a move it has said will eventually help protect the country’s rice industry. Liberalization has been strongly resisted by local farmers, who view it as a threat to their livelihoods.

South Korea was given special treatment in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations at the WTO that required all member states to introduce tariff-only regimes for trade in agriculture.

The exemption allowed South Korea to postpone its market opening for 10 years from 1995, but in return, the country had to increase its rice imports under what is known as minimum market access (MMA) by 20,000 tons per year. The deal was extended by another 10 years in 2004.

The scheduled expiration of the exemption at the end of this year had left the country with only two options -- either open its rice market or seek another waiver.

The agriculture minister has repeatedly said the second option would be far more damaging to the country’s farmers as it would entail a further increase in the country’s mandatory rice import quota.

The Philippines recently secured a five-year waiver for its required rice market opening, but only after it agreed to more than double its MMA import quota to over 800,000 tons per year, along with various other undisclosed concessions to nine other members of the WTO.

South Korea’s MMA import quota reached 408,000 tons this year, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the country‘s annual consumption. The MMA import quota is retained even after a country liberalizes its rice market.

Farmers, however, have strongly opposed trade liberalization, claiming the local market will be swamped by cheap imports.

The government claims it can effectively protect the local market by setting high tariffs, arguing that a country is generally allowed to set its own rates, subject to WTO approval.

The government has said tariffs of about 400 percent will make rice imports more expensive than locally produced grains.

It is expected to announce its proposed import tariff rate on rice shortly before the start of its negotiations with the WTO in September.

(From news report)