Calls for South Koreans to boycott Japanese goods have proven to be costly for Japanese beer and sake sales in Korea, as the latest data from Korea Customs Service (KCS) has shown.

The campaign known as ‘Boycott Japan’ was initiated in early July as a response to Japan’s decision to restrict exports of high-tech materials for smartphones and screens to South Korea.

The boycott covering cars, golf clubs, beer, sake and virtually any other Japanese imports has plunged Korea’s imports of Japanese consumer goods by 13.8% to US$2.86 billion in July year-on-year, according to data released by the KCS.

Japanese cars, which consisted the majority of the imports, suffered the most with a 34.1% fall.

Beer imports suffered a 34.6% decrease in July, while Sake, the Japanese rice wine, was hit with a 34.1% drop.

The tensions between the two Asian neighbors have since intensified after the July flare-up, leading both countries to remove each other from their trading white-lists.

“The data confirmed that Korean people’s voluntary campaign to boycott Japanese goods is not a storm in a tea cup and has enormous power to counter Japan’s export control on Korea,” Kang Byung-won, a lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party, was quoted as saying by Korea Times Weekly.