Some Public Information about Korea:Trade in a Nut Shell

• International trade balance is systematic statistics based on double-entry bookkeeping that shows all economic transactions of goods and service, including capital made between countries for a certain period of time.

• International trade balance usually indicates surplus or deficit irregularly in accordance with the domestic or international economic circumstances Generally, the current account balance that indicates spot transaction is referred to as international trade balance.

• From the 1960s to the mid 1990s, except the period from 1986 to 1989, our international trade balance was in the red. During 1998-1999, thanks to rapid depreciation of KRW against US$ caused by foreign exchange crisis, a big surplus was created.
• The size of our international trade has grown at a much larger rate than that of the world trade market.
• International trade scale once reached US$134.9 billion in the 1990s sharply grew up to US$478.3bill. or 354% in 2004.
  as imports and exports keep growing in total, import & export share of primary industry products keeps lessening on the contrary. 
  With respect to agricultural, forestry and fishery products, the import far exceeds the export.

• International trade balance

  (Unit: US$mil.)

• Year	Export			Import			trade balance
  	Total(a)	agriculture, forestry, fishery prodeucts(B)	%	Total(C)	agriculture,  forestry,  fishery  prodeucts(D)	%	a-C	B-D
  1985	30,283	1,543	5.1	31,136	2,511	8.1	??3	??8
  1990	65,016	2,920	4.5	69,844	5,789	8.3	??828	??869
  1995	125,058	3,469	2.8	135,119	10,520	7.8	??,061	??051
  1996	129,715	3,464	2.7	150,339	12,021	8.0	??,624	??557
  1997	136,164	3,252	2.5	144.616	11,179	7.8	??452	??927
  1998	132,313	3,004	2.3	93,282	6,991	7.5	39,031	??987
  1999	134,685	3,200	1.4	119,752	8,600	7.2	23,933	??400
  2000	172,268	3,036	1.7	160,481	9,891	6.2	11,787	??825
  2003	193,817	2,989	1.5	178,827	12,182	6.8	14,990	??193
  2004	253,845	2,085	0.8	224,463	11,205	4.9	29,382	??120

• Recently, overall trade balance has greatly improved. However, agricultural and fishery products are still the major items making a deficit in trade balance due to expansion of open market policy for agricultural and fishery imports.

• Export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in 2003 is composed of agriculture 52.3% and fishery 37.7%. The major exports were vegetable and tobacco. Pork was also one of the major export items but its export fell greatly due to total discontinuation of export caused by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2000.



• In regard to import of agricultural, forestry and fishery products in 2003, agricultural products accounted for 50.9%, and the rest was shared by livestock and poultry, forestry and fishery products in similar level.
• Major imports were corn, flour, bean, beef, material lumber, croakers and scabbard fish. Japan is one of the major countries for our export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products. U.S. is the top importing target of Korea followed by China, australia and Indonesia.
• Recently, import of agricultural products from China is on the rise on a large scale.U.S. and China are the countries where we make a big trade deficit with agricultural, forestry and fishery products.
• The total number of agricultural and livestock import items is 11,261, and of them, 11,245 items are subject to automatic approval for import meaning that the import liberalization rate is 99.9%.

• Export & Import of agriculture, Forestry, Fishery Products

  (Unit: US$mil.)

• 
  

  		1998		1999		2000		2003
  			%		%		%		%
  Export	Total(a)	3,047	100.0	3,231	100.0	3,037	100.0	2,989	100.0
  	agricultural product	1,006	33.0	1,003	31.1	1,133	37.3	1,563	52.2
  	Livestock product	385	12.6	408	12.6	144	4.7	119	3.9
  	Forestry product	292	9.6	304	9.4	255	8.4	177	5.9
  	Fishery product	1,364	44.8	1,516	46.9	1,505	49.6	1,129	37.7
  Import	Total(B)	7,021	100.0	8,620	100.0	9,862	100.0	12,185	100.0
  	agricultural product	4,697	66.9	4,681	54.3	5,105	51.8	6,215	50.9
  	Livestock product	727	10.3	1,245	14.5	1,679	17.0	2,115	17.3
  	Forestry product	1,015	14.5	1,526	17.7	1,667	16.9	1,892	15.5
  	Fishery product	852	8.3	1,168	13.5	1,411	14.3	1,964	16.1
  a-B		??974		??389		??825		??196