The Korea Forest Service’s National Forest Seed Variety Center announced the completion of the 2025 seed distribution survey and plans for intensive inspections in 2026.
This year, major items like shiitake spawn, inoculation media, and seedlings were inspected to prevent the distribution of defective seeds.
In January and February 2026, intensive inspections will be conducted to prevent consumer harm during the Lunar New Year.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that apply for intellectual property (IP) rights see a 1.36 times increase in high growth potential.
The information and communication industry showed the highest growth potential at 2.69 times, while manufacturing was at 1.39 times.
SMEs that also engage in overseas IP applications see their high growth potential rise to 1.8 times.

The Fair Trade Commission announced the results of the ‘2025 Distribution Sector Supplier Survey’ conducted with major large-scale retailers.
The survey revealed that 89.0% of suppliers reported improved trading practices compared to the previous year, an increase of 3.5 percentage points.
Convenience stores had the highest improvement response rate at 92.8%, while online shopping malls had the lowest at 82.9%.

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and Naver have launched the ‘Naver Pre-Entry Quarantine Information Service’ by integrating Q-CODE with Naver Pass.
This service automatically links Naver member information, allowing users to skip 6 out of 11 required fields when entering Q-CODE.
This reduces the time needed for entering quarantine information and simplifies the entry inspection process for international arrivals.

The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment will hold a policy forum on battery recycling on December 16 in Pohang.
The forum aims to share the current status of major policies for promoting battery recycling and explore ways to foster the industry.
Over 100 experts will attend to present and discuss various topics.

In 2024, retirement pension funds increased by 12.9% from the previous year, reaching 431 trillion won.
The total number of businesses adopting the system rose by 1.3% to 442,000, and the number of enrolled workers increased by 2.9% to 7.354 million.
The number of individual retirement pension subscribers grew by 11.7%, and the number and amount of mid-term withdrawals increased by 4.3% and 12.1%, respectively.