Korea restarts honey exports to Saudi Arabia after sanitary review clearance

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Korea’s honey exports to Saudi Arabia are back on track after the country won a spot on the kingdom’s approved import list, clearing a regulatory hurdle that had stalled shipments since last year.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Saudi Arabia’s Food and Drug Authority added Korea to its import approval list for honey products as of Monday, local time, reopening the market to Korean honey, honey-containing foods and bee-derived products such as royal jelly, propolis and pollen.

The move resolves a trade bottleneck that emerged after Saudi Arabia tightened import controls in 2024, requiring honey products to come only from countries that passed a sanitary review and registered their manufacturing facilities.

The rule change had already hit Korean exporters, including one case in February 2024 in which a Korean honey product was held at Saudi customs.

According to a Thursday release from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the agency worked with Saudi regulators and the Korean Embassy in Saudi Arabia to resolve the customs issue and support Korean companies through the new review and registration process, under a food and drug cooperation memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries in October 2023.

One of the biggest obstacles was Saudi Arabia’s requirement that export facilities be inspected by a Saudi-approved institution.

The ministry said it secured an arrangement allowing SGS Korea, the Korean branch of the global inspection and certification company SGS, to conduct inspections in cooperation with SGS Riyadh, which is recognized by Saudi authorities.

That change cut inspection costs and wait times for exporters, while also easing communication issues during the audit process, the ministry said.