Makgeolli exports declined for 6th straight year in 2017

Korea’s exports of the traditional alcoholic beverage makgeolli declined nearly 5 percent in 2017, marking a drop for the sixth consecutive year as it failed to attract consumers from the United States and China, government data showed Tuesday.

Outbound shipments of the Korean rice wine came to $12.25 million in 2017, down 4.8 percent from $12.87 million tallied the previous year, according to data from the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade.

The latest figure is nearly a quarter of when the tally reached its peak with $52.74 million in 2011, the data showed.

Japan was the largest importer of the Korean traditional alcohol last year with $6.9 million, followed by the United States with $1.73 million and China with $1.31 million, according to the data.

While outbound shipments to Japan edged up 1.1 percent on-year during the cited period, the comparable figures for the U.S. and China were down 12.4 percent and 30.5 percent, respectively.

Domestic retail sales of makgeolli, meanwhile, increased from 300.6 billion won ($269 million) in 2015 to 314.6 billion won in 2016. In the first nine months of last year, the sales came to 267.4 billion won, up 11.6 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.

Yonhap