Namdaemun market is 365 days, 24 hours South Korea's representative market.

Namdaemun Market is handling apparel, textiles, kitchenware, household appliances, folk crafts, souvenirs, agricultural products, various foods, daily necessities and imported goods. Especially, various ladies' clothes are handled the most, southeast Asia and America as well as Europe. In addition, children's clothes accounts for more than 90% of the children's clothes market.

Each store is a small but independent company that produces and sells each product. Since it has a distribution structure in which producers and consumers are directly connected to each other, the price is as low as the distribution cost, and because it has both wholesale and retail, as well as intermediate wholesalers and retailers who come from all over the world.

​Even though it is a weekday time, a lot of people visit  the Namdeamun market and watched things. Especially Namdaemun is popular for beads, jewelrys and accessaries shopping. However, there are a lot of other things.

Namdaemun market is selling so many things that it can be said that there is everything of the country really, also it is said that a traditional culture-type market that is located in a convenient location in Seoul and is developing steadily.

However, the most famous items in Namdaemun market is beads, jewelrys and accessories related items. Korean as well as foreigners can visit the Namdaemun market directly at a reasonable price to purchase various accessories.

Now I will introduce some buildings located in Namdaemun. You can buy good quality beads, jewelrys and accessories there. Can you see through below picture how many items they selling.

​1) Coco Accessaries Mall

It is about 80 meters from the entrance of the central road and is on the left side of the street. Hair accessories, and small accessories.

2) Yusung accessories

Here is lacated nearby Coco Accessaries Mall that looks into the left alley. 
This mall handling mainly hair accessories, scarfs, small bags, key rings and other small accessories. It's cleaner than others but it's narrow.

3) Trillion Accessories Building

It is a newer one, the inside is clean and well arranged compared to other places. I recommend this place if your first time shopping. The road is not so narrow, so it has the advantage of being easy to see.

4) Deado Jewelry Mall

Finally, when you go down the main road and pass the Coco Accessaries Mall, you will see the building on the right. This is selling items that are mainly geared to accessories(earrings, bracelets, rings, necklaces and etc.) Rarely, there are scarves, dolls, bags. Like other places, it is selling well but wholesale and B2B preferred.

​This posting is helpful? If you have any questions, please post any comments or comments on this post.

As Korea-Colombia FTA(Free Trade Agreement) was officially inaugurated on July 15th 2016, South Korea has already entered into FTA with 52 countries through 15 agreements. So now we can say that we are living in an FTA era. But we still feel that the FTA is difficult and complex. In order to make the FTA feel closer, I prepared an article to see what the Korea FTA is.

FTA is an abbreviation of "Free Trade Agreement". It is an agreement that facilitates free trade between countries by mitigating or eliminating trade barriers. If you interact with a country that has an FTA, you will be subject to customs or low tariffs.

If an FTA is agreed, not all tariffs are completely eliminated. Depending on the competitiveness of the industrial sector, they are gradually eliminating or cutting down at different times.

It is important to remember that the FTA is not a trade organization but a free trade agreement between the all different countries. As the FTA is a non-trade organization, so it is the principle of bilateral negotiations. So, the FTA that Korea concluded will have different conditions depending on the country of conclusion. I understand, FTA, it sounds difficult to you, but in fact I can understand this simple!

​But one of the biggest challenges in understanding the FTA is probably due to similar and different trade terms. What is the FTA different from GATT and WTO? GATT, WTO It seems like you've heard it clearly, but how do you get confused with the FTA? Let 's look at the differences, along with some unusual trade terms that seem to be the same or different.

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade(GATT) is a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, an international organization created in 1948 with the aim of eliminating trade barriers other than tariffs. Although GATT is an international organization, the signing of the agreement is optional, which is not only a multi-faceted tool, but also has many limitations in legal dispute resolution procedures.

The World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Trade Organization, was born in 1995 to solve the limitations of this GATT. The WTO has been created to replace the GATT, and it continues to maintain the character of relief organizations to reduce or eliminate trade barriers to promote world trade. However, the WTO has overcome many of the GATT limitations, strengthened its character as an international organization, not an agreement, and has been able to cope with legal disputes more effectively.

​Since GATT and WTO are international organizations, multilateral negotiation is the principle, but FTA is a bilateral agreement in principle. In addition, the WTO is an international organization of multilateralism based on the principle of most-favored-nation treatment for the all member countries. Safeguards and anti-dumping are used as major trade remedies. However, FTAs are bilateral agreements. I have a difference.

The most important difference between the FTA and the GATT, WTO is that it is a trade agreement between individual countries, not an international organization.

I have just said that one of the features of the FTA is that it uses origin verification as a major trade remedy. In order to be eligible for the tariff concession of an FTA, the country of origin determination criteria must be met. Even if it is imported from an FTA country, if it does not meet the criteria for determining the origin, it will not be covered by the FTA concession tax rate and will be subject to the basic tax rate or elasticity tax rate. In fact, origin is very important.

In other words, if you can not keep the criteria of origin in the FTA, you do not get FTA benefits. Even if an FTA is concluded, it is a reasonable trade agreement, not a tariff benefit indiscreetly.

So far, I have reviewed what the FTA is about. FTA is simple concept but it is practically complicated. Regardless that, I hope that this article help you to understand Korea FTA!

To get the official trade business code of South Korea, someone who intends to trade should apply to the head of Korea Trade Association, it can be granted without restrictions if applicant has no problem before legally. The trade business code plays the role of registration number(ID number), without it, importing and exporting activities are not possible in South Korea.

In the Korea Foreign Trade Law, trade management standards were liberalized, but for 54 items, such as subject to the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law,  the company must have a separate qualification. Medicines, drugs, psychotropic medicines, hemp, pesticides, seeds, petroleum products, poisons. In order to handle, both the trader and the contractor must meet the strict conditions required by the South Korea government.

This is our company's 'Certificate of trade business code'. I have completed my application and have a copy of my business registration and the representative's ID card. 

Hope this posting to help you find good trade company in South Korea!

Do you know how to make liquid type cosmetics in cosmetic factory?

Cosmetics are available in a variety of forms and their viscosity varies accordingly. Therefore, the manufacturing process of the cosmetics and the machines used will also depend on the type of cosmetics.

The following is a process for manufacturing liquid products such as skin lotions among various kinds of cosmetics, which is almost the same as the process for manufacturing general water soap(liquid soap).

When manufacturing a water bottle using a machine, it usually goes through the process of 'Mixing → Filling → Packing'. There are many kinds of machines used in each process, but the most common machines are as follows.

1. Mixing

The machine used to manufacture cosmetics depends on the viscosity of the product. The stirrer shown below is a general liquid stirrer used for low viscosity products and is relatively inexpensive. However, in the case of products with high viscosity, the following stirrer can not be used and the price is also extremely high.

The following types of stirrers are used to mix raw materials when manufacturing liquid cosmetics. Most of them are made of double-layered structure and do not directly heat the contents when the product is heated. Because the heating temperature and the rotation speed of the agitator can be adjusted, it can be adjusted according to the characteristics of the product. Generally, the stirrer used in cosmetics manufacturing is made of stainless steel and can be manufactured in various sizes according to user's requirement.

2. Filling

The process of filling the stirred product into each container is referred to as filling. Similarly, the filling machine to be used varies depending on the viscosity of the product. Manual work can be economical if the product is manufactured in a small quantity, but it is also almost impossible to accurately hold a certain amount of time in addition to the time consuming.

However, using a filler reduces manpower and time, and allows accurate work. The picture below is a machine called a rotary filling machine, especially for tubular products.

3. Capping

Closing the cap of the product container is referred to as capping, which can also be done by hand, but it saves time and manpower by using the machine. The capper may not necessarily be used because it depends on the function of the filling machine and the container of the product. The picture below shows that the capper is automatically aligned with the capper after the filled container is moved on the conveyor with the automatic capper.

4. Packing

Packaging work may vary considerably depending on the product. However, in most cases box packaging is common, and in some cases, sealing packaging is also available.

South Korea is one of the best countries to make high quality cosmetics. If you are interested in cosmetic business, feel free to contact me!