• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.131-145
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• 2020

Purpose - The recent growth of South Korean products in the international market is the benchmark for both developed as well as developing countries. According to the development index, the role of international trade is indeed crucial for the development of the national economy. However, the visualization of the international trade profile of the country is the prerequisite of governmental policy decision-makers and guidance for forecasting of foreign trade. Design/methodology - We have utilized data visualization techniques in order to visualize the import & export product space and trade partners of South Korea. Economic Complexity Index (ECI) and Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) were used to identify the Korean international trade diversification, whereas the time series approach is used to forecast the economy and foreign trade variables. Findings - Our results show that Chine, U.S, Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Japan are the leading trade partners of Korea. Overall, the ECI of South Korea is growing significantly as compared to China, Hong Kong, and other developed countries of the world. The expected values of total import and export volume of South Korea are approximately US$535.21 and US$ 781.23B, with the balance of trade US$ 254.02B in 2025. It was also observed from our analysis that imports & exports are equally substantial to the GDP of Korea and have a significant correlation with GDP, GDP per capita, and ECI. Originality/value - To maintain the growth rate of international trade and efficient competitor for the trade partners, we have visualized the South Korea trade profile, which provides the information of significant export and import products as well as main trade partners and forecasting.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.1-26
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• 2019

Purpose - This paper investigates the recent trade collapse, recovery, and prolonged slowdown to shed light on the discussions about whether the current slowdown is structural or cyclical. I examine structural, cyclical, and heterogeneous aspects of the recent trade trends using detailed statistics of a small open economy, South Korea, whose economic success and growth have been heavily dependent on exports. Design/methodology - I use both aggregated and disaggregated trade statistics of South Korea. I apply the following methodologies: 1) I decompose the trade growth into the extensive and the intensive margin and observe the effect of prices over time. 2) I estimate the trade-income elasticities focusing on the world's import demand, separately for goods from the world and from Korea. 3) I compare the drop in goods exports in slowdown and trade collapse, which are the two unusual periods in the recent history when world trade has substantially dropped altogether. Findings - I show that while the last drop of trade after 2015 has cyclical aspects, there is evidence that the continued slowdown from 2012 is structural: 1) the so-called 'China factor' is found in the analysis of trade-income elasticity of the world and China for imports from Korea. 2) The bilateral trade barriers between Korea and its principal trading partners are universally tightening. 3) Firm sizes, destination countries, and the mode of transactions affect disaggregated trade flows during the slowdown periods. Originality/value - This paper contributes to the debate regarding whether the current trade slowdown is structural or cyclical. I provide two concrete evidence that the export drop in 2015 stems from low oil prices: one is the divergence of Korean export value index from its export quantity index, which started in late 2014 when oil prices plunged. I also contribute to the literature by providing evidence that Korea's trade barriers with important trading partners are steadily increasing since 2012 as the protectionist measures toward Korea's export products are steeply increasing after the global financial crisis.

• Asian Journal of Innovation and Policy
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.108-131
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• 2021

The increase of international trade across countries and borders results in increased risks associated with the inflow of new pests and diseases. These risks are likely to be increased more rapidly due to climate change. Some countries implement strict regulations on imports to prevent these risks and protect biosecurity, food safety, and public health. However, the problems arise when the diseases and pests are found in a country where their economic structure largely depends on agricultural exports and cause ripple effects on other industries and ecosystems. Therefore, establishing an effective quarantine system is essential to protect and recover from the damage caused by non-native diseases and pests. This study's objectives are 1) analyzing the agricultural policies relate to the quarantine system on diseases and pests in Korea, 2) evaluating the Korea plant quarantine system's value, and 3) simulating plant quarantine policy strategies. We estimated the Korean quarantine system's benefits on diseases and pests to reach these objectives. The benefits are measured with a willingness to pay from respondents surveyed by the contingent valuation method (CVM). The CVM approach directly asks people how much they would willingly pay for food security. Finally, the Korean quarantine system's values are simulated with several policy scenarios and different scales of infection at the regional level. The results of this study can deliver policy implications on the quarantine system innovation in developing countries including Asia.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.96-112
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• 2019

Purpose - "Trade Facilitation" aims the easier flow of trade across borders, driven not only by effective customs administration, the efficiency of appropriate authorities, but also by telecommunications, the quality of infrastructures and competent logistics. Facilitating trade will help lower trade development costs as well as improve economic development and enhance economic benefits for emerging economies at a time when imports and exports are sent in and out across borders several times in the form of intermediate and final products. Not only that, globalization is being accelerated, which in turn increases competitiveness and this makes logistics one of the key factors when it comes to international trade. Highly efficient logistics services promote product movement, ensure product safety and delivery speed, and reduce trade costs between countries. The purpose of this study is, by using the LPI indices based on gravity model estimates, to analyze the impact of each LPI component on trade with the 20 biggest exporting countries of Northeast Asian countries-Korea, Japan, and China-which account for 19.05% of global exports. Design/methodology - Also, this study statistically analyzes the impact of trade on Northeast Asian countries' top 20 exporting countries, using the LPI indices relevant to Trade Facilitation based on the gravity model estimates. Findings - As a result, it was turned out that the distance, GDP, and the LPI components have relevant impact on the trade exports of all three countries but demonstrated little relation to the demographic perspective. Originality/value - The study also found we can increase the trade volume by improving three countries' trade partners' LPI indices since Korea, Japan, and China share most of their 20 biggest trade partners.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.48-64
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• 2021

Purpose - This study examined the effect of tariff cuts on productivity in Korea's manufacturing industries and the effect of initial productivity level before tariff cuts on productivity improvement after tariff cuts. We also attempted to identify whether import-driven or export-driven factors are more important for productivity improvement, especially in low productivity industries. Design/methodology - Since tariff reduction is a policy decision that can affect cross-industry, its impact is spread across all industries beyond the scope of a single firm through the input and output network of industry structure. Accordingly, we proposed a new method to measure the change in productivity to reflect the impact of tariff cuts across industries. Through an Armington CGE analysis, changes in endogenous variables can be directly measured after the exogenous shock of tariff reduction, and the amount of movements in productivity triggered by tariff cuts can also be calculated. We can thus assess the effectiveness of exogenous policy, such as tariff cuts, through the difference between the benchmark and counterfactual values of endogenous variables. Findings - This study confirmed that tariff reduction positively affected productivity improvement in Korea's manufacturing industries. It also confirmed that productivity gains occur in Korea's leading export industries. Finally, greater productivity gains were recorded in the group with additional high-export-share or high-import-share conditions for low productivity industries. These results are, in a limited sense, consistent with the existing studies that emphasize the importance of exports and imports on productivity improvement, especially for low productivity industries. Originality/value - The results of our experiments are different from those of non-CGE studies, which measure the industry-level change in productivity with dummy coefficients, in terms of directly calculating the amount of change in productivity. In addition, we propose that the Armington CGE model is more appropriate than the Melitz CGE model to directly measure the productivity after tariff cuts. This is because the Melitz CGE model assumes the given specific productivity density, which does not change after an overall drop of tariffs. To the best of our knowledge, this approach to directly calculating productivity by reflecting the impact of tariff reduction across industries through CGE analysis, is unprecedented in this literature.

• The Korea Journal of Herbology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2014

Objectives : This study was carried out to identify DNA markers of "Allium sativum" be circulated from Korea and China, which is difficult to discriminate from morphological characters because of fragmental materials of bulb. That is, all these studies focused on the discrimination of Allium sativum L. But these day, Chinese A. sativum was in circulated Korean A. sativum in Korean medicine markets. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to develop molecular markers for discrimination between Korean A. sativum and imports from China. Methods : Materials were collected randomly from a markets in Korea and China and be analyzed with matK, ndhF and trnL-F regions of chloroplast DNA (cpDNA). We collected 45 A. sativum individuals from Korean and Chinese medicine markets, in 2013. Results : As a results, matK and ndhF regions of cpDNA was shown to be identify, Species that grow from warm place and cold place can divide as five SNP (Single nucleotide polymorphisms) markers in matK and ndhF genes. Also, in trnL-F regions, found one SNP that can divide Korean A. sativum and Chinese A. sativum. Conclusions : From the analysis of matK and ndhF regions of cpDNA, we presumed that three markers of cpDNA were found by useful marker that can distinguish Korean, Chinese, Warm place type, and Cold place type. Individual differences of Korean and Chinese was thought that appear in geographical difference and genetic difference by environment for long hour even if same species.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.397-405
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• 2022

Castor oil cake is widely used as a raw material for organic fertilizers (OF) in Korea. Compared to other fertilizer raw materials, it is highly dependent on imports. In terms of replacing raw materials, dehydrated food waste powder (FDP) and castor oil cake have similar nutritional content, and if 30% is replaced, about 20% of the raw material cost can be saved. However, few studies on the effects on crop growth and soil properties when organic fertilizer and dry food waste powder are mixed and applied to the soil have been reported. The effects of an organic fertilizer made by mixing the commercial available organic fertilizer with dehydrated food waste (OF + FDP) on soil properties and the growth of two types of leafy vegetables (lettuce and young radish) were evaluated and compared with the performance of OF. The fresh weights of lettuce and young radish were the highest with OF amendment and stood at 114.3 and 119.0 g·plant^-1, respectively. These were followed by OF + FDP amendment, which produced 103.1 and 109.6 g·plant^-1, respectively. Compared to the control, OF and OF + FDP increased the lettuce fresh weights by about 69% and 52%, respectively, while the fresh weights of the radish were increased by about 223% and 207%, respectively. The soil pH, EC, total carbon content, and organic matter content in OF and OF + FDP increased. The mixture of dehydrated food waste powder and organic fertilizers is expected to improve soil quality and facilitate stable production of crops and contribute to the substitution of imported organic fertilizer raw materials.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.105-125
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• 2021

Purpose - This study analyzes the effects that the response to the technical barriers to trade (TBT), which are used by various countries as means to restrict imports, exerts on exports at a time when protectionism is emerging in the face of a global economic downturn. TBT has been widely used in developed countries for the safety and protection of their people. Recently, the use of TBT as a tool of protectionism has increased considerably in developing countries as well. Therefore, this study analyzes the South Korean SMEs' response and export performance. Design/methodology - To analyze SMEs' response to TBT and their export performance, this study conducted empirical analysis through statistical analysis. To this end, the research established a theory based on previous research and designed its hypothesis and research model. To verify the hypothesis and research model, factor analysis addressing validity and reliability was performed using SPSS 25 and AMOS 26, and the structural equation model was analyzed. Findings - This study found the causal relationship between the independent variable, the mediating variable, and the dependent variable adopted against the theoretical background to have little or no effect, in contrast with previous studies. In a break from previous studies, all hypotheses were rejected for innovation strategic competencies, one of the sub-factors of the independent variable, which is believed to be a result of the lack of practical research related to TBT. Originality/value - Previous studies performed analysis using trade statistics or macro data. A number of such studies analyzed the relationship between technical regulation and trade volume. This study differs from previous studies in some respects, because it analyzed the export performance of companies by establishing a hypothesis and implementing a research model with the factors analyzed in previous studies. In addition, a new attempt has been made by classifying the TBT response factors into technology competencies, human resource competencies, and innovation strategic competencies, and utilizing technology innovation and the export support system as mediating effects.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.25 no.6_2
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• pp.1097-1102
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• 2022

With the continuous development of the current industry, the current global environment is in a very serious situation, with resource supply and demand dependent on imports and huge costs for waste disposal due to the depletion of resources and mass generation of industrial waste. Its limitations have already been revealed in many fields, and the importance of re-manufacturing is drawing attention as a countermeasure to these problems. Re-manufacturing aims to recover products that are in the aging and disposal stages, recover to performance close to new products, and re-commercialize them. Among them, most of the machine tools are made of materials such as steel and cast iron with large structures, and raw materials are widely used when producing new products. In addition, since a lot of carbon is generated due to production, it is an object that can obtain a great re-manufacturing effect. Planner millers belonging to large machine tools are one of the machine tool equipment that can greatly reduce resources and energy through re-manufacturing because the structure is very large and the casting is several to tens of tons. Through this machine tool, performance tests and results are derived on the development of re-manufacturing source technology and domestic servo motor and CNC control device.

• The Journal of Fisheries Business Administration
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.45-63
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyze the structure, status and economic ripple effects of the fisheries processing industry in Korea using interindustry analysis. Five input-output tables published over the past twenty years have been reclassified with a focus on the fisheries processing sector. Through these multi-period tables, we analyzed changes in the inducing effects in production, value added and employment as well as the backward-forward linkage effects. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the industrial scale of the fisheries processing industry is very small compared to other food manufacturing industries. The backward linkage effect of the fisheries processing industry was greater than that of other industries, but the forward linkage effect was rather low. This means that the fisheries processing industry can be greatly affected by industrial depression of the downstream industries such as fishery and aquaculture. Production and employment-inducing effects of the fisheries processing industry have shown a decreasing trend in recent years. This reflects the reality that intermediate inputs are gradually being replaced by imports from domestic production due to the expansion of market opening and the depletion of fishery resource. In the future, it is necessary to prepare a strategy to increase the value-added productivity of the fisheries processing sector and foster it as an export industry.