Press Release

Korea`s leading retailers and consumer goods manufacturers agreed to use an industry-wide product database system called KorEANnet at a meeting yesterday, in a move to cut costs by standardizing product information among businesses.

Chief executive officers of Shinsegae E-Mart, Lotte Shopping Lotte Mart, LG Household & Health Care , Ottogi Corp., CJ Corp., Unilever Korea and Procter & Gamble Korea were present at the meeting to pledge their participation to the KorEANnet system.

"As top retailers and manufacturers take the initiative in integrating product information, the whole industry is expected to take advantage of the data system in online and offline trades," said an official at EAN Korea, which operates KorEANnet.

"Once the standard database format is set and widely-used, individual companies will not need to seek for product information themselves and compare differences caused by various product code systems," he added.

EAN Korea, led by Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry Chairman Park Yong-sung, is the Korean member of EAN International, a worldwide e-commerce business association.

EAN is the abbreviation for European Article Number, an international product code system set in 1977.

KorEANnet was launched in 2001 and now has product information of 160,000 items from more than 7,000 member companies.

By Kim Sung-mi

(smkim@heraldm.com)