Little Different from Before
According to the Institute for International Trade of the Korea International Trade Association, 36.7%, 45.6% and 17.7% of South Korean companies are doing well, so-so and poorly in major export markets, respectively. The result of the survey covering 1,125 South Korean companies showed little improvement in comparison to three years ago.
Specifically, the ratio of outperformers is as high as 50.7% when it comes to quality competitiveness but it is relatively low, 34% and 35%, when it comes to price competitiveness and overseas marketing and sale competitiveness.
In the survey, 33.9% of the respondents answered that they were concerned the most about financial market uncertainties such as an interest rate hike by the Fed and forex rate fluctuations. The answer was followed by fluctuations in the prices of oil and raw materials (27.7%), the slowdown of the Chinese economy (14.0%), etc. 77.4% said exports would be recovered in or after the second half of next year while 21.0% said no recovery is likely for the time being. 38.1% answered China holds the key to such a recovery, followed by the United States (28.8%), Vietnam (21.2%), Japan (15.5%) and EU (15.5%).
71.1% of the exporting firms said they were participating in global value chains but the ratio is as low as 4.1% in the case of those taking part in high value-added parts such as marketing. 67.8% are running no SNS channel at all and export via e-commerce is in use by only 14.8%. Besides, the companies in the survey recorded 31.3 on a scale of one to 100 when it comes to the obtainment of ICT convergence technology.