In June, high-performance artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductors were blocked from exporting to the Southeast Asia region at the border. The AI semiconductors, which are high-priced equipment costing over $10,000 each, were designated as strategic materials as of February 28 of this year.
To export products designated as strategic materials overseas, one must obtain an 'export permit' from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which means they almost left without permission. The tariff office advised the company to obtain an export permit. While many companies have received export permits, some are reported to have canceled their exports.
The United States manages high-performance AI semiconductors as items subject to export controls. This is to limit China's rise in AI technology. To evade this U.S. restriction, China has been securing AI chipsets in various regions, with Southeast Asia, including Singapore and Malaysia, being known as key procurement routes.
If it is confirmed that AI semiconductors were exported without a permit for the export of strategic materials and flowed into China via Southeast Asia, concerns about Korea's trade security gap could have been raised in the international community, according to customs authorities.
The tariff office announced on the 27th that it identified and blocked about 1 billion won worth of high-performance AI semiconductors attempting to export without strategic material approval in the first half of this year.
In addition to AI semiconductors, strollers and bicycles with falsely marked safety certifications (KC) numbers, as well as Chinese-made auxiliary batteries labeled with inflated capacities, were also detected and blocked at the border.
The customs authorities emphasized that blocking the import of items that threaten social safety and the export of goods that could harm trade security is an achievement of the 'collaboration information team' within the office.
The collaboration information team is a group of employees dispatched from four agencies, including the Ministry of Environment, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Korea Food and Drug Administration, and Korean Security Agency of Trade and Industry (KOSTI), sharing relevant information to mitigate customs risks.
Preventing the illegal import of internationally endangered species and blocking the domestic distribution of illegal pharmaceuticals is also one of the missions assigned to them.
In June, the collaboration information team linked the voluntary recall company databases (DB) from the Korea Technology Standards Agency with the tariff office's system to prevent unsafe items from entering the country.
The plan is to establish an 'image-based mobile smart system' within this year that connects the Food and Drug Administration's DB to mobile devices for inspecting imported goods, allowing immediate verification of the presence of harmful ingredients in 297 kinds of food items by photographing the ingredient labels. A customs authority official said, 'Once the image-based mobile smart system is introduced, the inspection time for imported goods is expected to be shortened by over 95%,' adding that 'quick and accurate customs clearance will become possible.'
Jeong Gu-cheon, director of the Customs Border Risk Management Center, said, 'We will prioritize public health and social safety, and through inter-agency cooperation, we will thoroughly block illegal and harmful goods from the border.'