‘Consumer Market Evaluation Index’ was developed by the KCA 

   As industry imbalance is getting worse due to conglomerate-led industrial development, consumer-oriented characteristics in the market seem to have a considerable difference by business, industry, and company. 

   Against this backdrop, the Korea Consumer Agency (www.kca.go.kr) developed a 'Consumer Market Evaluation Index' in order to monitor how much consumer-oriented the product or service market is performing in Korea. 

   The evaluation is going to be conducted on the annual basis. This year on a trial basis, the evaluation is going to be conducted targeting product and service market of over 10 different areas including cars (new car), mobile telecommunication services, coverage insurance (life insurance), large-sized household appliances, household products, garments, restaurants, meats, oriental medicine, and tourist package (cross-border).

   There are seven evaluation items in place including the comfort and ease of comparing information, problems, complaints, trust in retailers, business, product safety, satisfaction, and switching of providers (consumers’ right to choose). 

   The evaluation results are going to be provided to all the relevant ministries concerned, so as to be utilized as basic tool and information in policy making to build a more consumer-oriented market.

   The Korean Consumer Market Evaluation Index is developed by the KCA by benchmarking the Consumer Market Consumer Scoreboard (market monitoring method) by the EU Directorate General Health and Consumers. The EU has been conducting a biannual monitoring of 50 marketplaces twice a year since 2008.