"The Korean government is to seek new trade policies to cope with a rapidly changing trade environment in the wake of the global financial crisis." President Lee Myung-bak urged in his ceremony speech to mark the 47th Trade Day at COEX, Seoul on November 30.
In his speech, the president stressed the importance of penetrating markets in emerging economies such as China, India, and Brazil. Those countries have shown rapid growth and positioned themselves central to the world's economy. He added that the proportion of G7 nations in world trade has been reduced from half to one third, which the G20 accounts for two-thirds of the world economy.
President Lee stated, "The development agenda of the G20 Seoul Summit also holds significance, in line with the long-term expansion of the overseas market."
Later, the President urged local small and medium sized enterprises to enter into the global market by upgrading their competitiveness. The Korean government intends to incubate more SMEs to raise the nation's total exports up to 40 percent from the current 30 percent.
After the President's greeting, the government of Korea announced its ambitious vision to become one of the world's top 7 exporters by 2015. With this, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy announced seven potential-laden markets, such as Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, China, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. To increase the trade volume, the ministry is planning to enter the infra market which links resource development and aggressively targets the middle class consumer market. The ministry will also establish a new infrastructure to foster 500 SMEs as global businesses.
Additionally, the ministry will integrate and organize all the trade information from various ministries as well as expanding their online-based electronic trading networks. Also, they enhanced the support for pioneering the field of new trade sectors including procurement, services, and plant.
With this, Korea is currently negotiating a FTA with 12 countries including Canada and Mexico. The trade conditions will improve when the currency stabilizes and new free trade agreements with the EU and Peru are fully utilized. So far, Korea has ratified Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with 45 countries.
Meanwhile, the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) announced that Korea is expected to become the world's 7th largest exporter this year for reaching the amount of USD $466 billion in exports, which is exceeding the level which stood prior to the economic crisis in 2008. Also, Korea jumped two spots ahead from last year when they held the position of 9th biggest exporter in exports.
Also, KITA forecasts that exports will reach a total trade volume of USD $1 trillion ranking them the 9th trade nation in the world for next year.
KITA sees that Korea will have a surplus of USD $42 billion as exports are expected to rise by 28.2 percent to USD $466 billion and imports by 31.2 percent to USD $424 billion, by far the nation's highest number. In addition, KITA forecasts for the next year, exports will increase 10.7 percent to USD $516 billion and imports will grow 14.4 percent to USD $485 billion for next year.
Nevertheless a lot of uncertainties in the global economy are likely to weaken export growth for next year, the nation's key export items such as automobile parts, machineries and textiles will lead as the strongest exports continually. The automobile parts industry is expected to increase demands in emerging markets including China. The IT industry also has a positive outlook for the next year as the demand for TV panels, semiconductors, and smartphone displays increase.
