2007 Volume 47 Issue 1 Pages 23-41
The purpose of this paper is to predict a future of Korea’s cultured flatfish trade with Japan through investigating the trend and present condition of live fish export.
As Korea has sharply reduced the export of marine products, its export to Japan, the largest importer of the Korean marine products, is also decreasing. Although frozen marine products exported toward Japan have decreased, exports of highly valued products such as cold-storage products and live fish have been increased. Especially, the export of flatfish has increased at an annual growth rate of 20% or more for the last one decade. It is Jejudo region that contributes greatly to a sharp rise of the export of cultured flatfish to Japan. The total volume of flatfish exports to Japan reached to 5,549 tons in 2005, of which Jejudo region amounted to 5,307 tons, accounting for 95.6% of the total export.
This paper tries to identify the reasons why Korea has successfully increased the export of flatfish to Japan. The export competitiveness of the Korean cultured flatfish has a natural environment advantageous to culture, geographical contiguity with Japan etc. It is expected that future Korean flatfish production will be slightly increased than now. Meanwhile, flatfish production in Japan is predicted to be maintained at the same level as or a little lower level than the present. Korean flatfish export to Japan may increase slightly after a period. The main factors to cause increase or decrease in export to Japan are a change of exchange rate of Korean won and Chinese production trend.
