Dried Seaweed Market

[Anchor Lead]

One of the most popular items many foreign tourists like to purchase in Korea is gim or edible dried seaweed. So gim, also known as dried laver, has become a mainstay of Korean maritime exports.

[Pkg]

This company, which processes gim, or dried seaweed, has recorded approximately 100,000 U.S. dollars in yearly exports. This year, it succeeded for the first time in exporting directly U.S.

[Soundbite] Choi Jin-ho(V.P. at Gim Processing Company) : "Through our opening of a permanent store in Los Angles, we anticipate continued exports to the U.S."

Thanks to its popularity in overseas markets, gim has become a flagship item among South Korea's exports of fisheries products. Gim exports topped 300 million U.S. dollars last year, with the volume of exports tripling in the last five years. As a result, gim has become the second most popular Korean fisheries export item, following tuna. Keys to this success include a departure from an export strategy focused on Japan, the development of new processing technologies, and the procurement of more overseas markets, such as the U.S., China and Southeast Asia.

[Soundbite] Kim Cheol-woo(Manager/Wando Food Export Association) : "Compared to gim in its original state, added value increases by a factor of 20 to 30 if it is processed to make gim snacks or seasoned gim."

The increased earnings are injecting renewed vitality in fishing villages. However, hurdles still remain for the further development of the gim industry, such as a more systematic management of the nation's gim farming technology, which is assessed to be at 60 percent of the level of its counterpart in Japan.