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Since 1988 Russia and Korea have been developing bilateral economic relations. After the conclusion of, the first trade agreement, Korea has become one of the largest trading and investment partners of the Russian Far East. Annually, Korea has increased trade and investment flows to the Russian Far East, a region with high growth potential. By the 2000s Korea has become the Russian Far East’s third largest trading partner. This article considers trade and investment flows from the 1990s to the present, analyses the prospects of achieving goals, and the problems of developing further bilateral cooperation between Russia and Korea.

This paper aims to understand the trade transportation situation between China and Koreas, and to explore the possibility of establishing the surface transportation corridor between China and Koreas in the future. Moreover, the paper also intends to find out the mode choice behaviors of shippers, which can be used to analyze the substitute effects of the surface modes on the water one.

The paper first analyzes the Sino-Korean bilateral trade and the corresponding trade transportation between China and Koreas. Secondly, it presents the surface transportation network between China and Koreas, and analyzes the warming relations between the North and South. Finally, the modal split of trade transportation between China and Koreas is estimated by establishing a mode choice model based on a questionnaire survey.

With the increasingly stable political environment and the physical highway and railway connections, the surface transportation network would become possible. Moreover, the shippers need the multimodal transportation system between China and Koreas, and many shippers would select road or rail mode if a suitable road or rail network were available. Especially, between China and South Korea, the road, rail and water mode may be used evenly, while the road mode may play a more important role between China and North Korea. The surface modes would have a huge substitute effect on the water mode.

The existing literature conducted research mainly from the perspective of economy and geopolitics, while the topics of transportation between China and Koreas are rarely concerned. This paper intends to throw some light on the situation of the trade transportation between China and Koreas, consider the potential of relation improvement on the Korean Peninsula proactively and study the surface transportation issues between China and Koreas.

This paper aims to explore the impacts of the recent development of Korean free trade agreements (FTAs) on its seaborne trade volumes. The paper firstly estimates the changes in cargo value flows caused by Korea-EU FTA, Korea-USA FTA and Korea-ASEAN FTA using a global computable general equilibrium model named Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) and its most recent database - version 7 with 2004 as the base year. Then a set of systematic conversion factors transferring trade value flows to volume flows of different types of commodities is calibrated according to the United Nations COMTRADE database and is used to convert the GTAP trade value flows into volume flows. Having indentified maritime cargo flows by different commodity types, this paper attempts to draw implications for maritime logistics policy in order to facilitate the trade of Korean merchandises and to propose key competitive strategy for the maritime container transport networking and logistics service providers in the Korean logistics industry.

This study aims to explore South Korean firms’ reactions to climate change issues and the Korean emissions trading scheme (ETS) from the perspective of proactive climate-entrepreneurship. Differences in attitude toward the Korean ETS, implementation of carbon management practices and performance regarding operations, market and emission reductions are also investigated.

A research model was developed to investigate the differences in corporate perception of climate change. Using a cluster analysis and analysis of variance with 94 South Korean companies subject to the Korean ETS, the study identified carbon strategies and examined differences in characteristics among the strategies. This study undertook a robustness test by comparing the results from a large sample (n = 261) with those of the original sample (n = 94).

The study identifies four different carbon strategies based on climate-entrepreneurial proactivity: the “explorer,” “hesitator,” “attempter” and “laggard.” The “explorer” cluster is likely to have a proactive stance toward the Korean ETS regulation, while the “laggard” cluster shows resistance to this new climate policy. Entrepreneurial proactivity in carbon strategies is related to the actual adoption, implementation and effectiveness of carbon management practices.

This research is one of the few studies to explore differences in corporate response to climate change from the perspective of entrepreneurship. The study provides a theoretical foundation for extending the literature on the strategic management of climate change issues.

Comprehensive studies examining how Korean e-commerce trade works are currently limited. This study seeks to explore whether Korea’s e-commerce trade is more applicable to traditional trade theory or to modern theories. According to our analysis, the share of intra-industry trade (IIT) in modern trade theory is less than that of general trade for Korean e-commerce. Therefore, trade based on comparative advantage can be more valid in explaining e-commerce trade. From results in analyzing the gravity model, it was found that Korea’s e-commerce exports are higher as IIT with its FTA partners. In contrast, it is found that the lower the proportion of e-commerce trade, the higher chance for the import growth. Lastly, this study looked at what kind of comparative advantage is realized through imports. While Korea has been mostly exporting goods of high quality, its major trading partners import products based on price and selection of goods. In order for Korea’s e-commerce to grow, a more strategic approach is necessary. A strategy of high price based on superior quality is not effective, and as e-commerce has radically reduced sales and marketing costs, so a price reduction needs to be reflected in the price of goods for consumers.

In this paper, we examine the comparative advantage of Korea and China while focusing on their technology level. The three digit SITC (Standard International Trade Classification) data is classified by technology level and the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) is derived from 1992-2009 by using UN COMTRADE data. For careful interpretation of the comparative advantage and technology levels, we also examined intra-industry trade and unit values of bilateral Korea-China trade, and semi-conductor industry technology. We found that the revealed comparative advantage has moved from low technology products to high technology products in Korea. China still maintains a comparative advantage in low technology products such as textiles and clothing, but at the same time, China’s high and medium-high technology products have recently gained a comparative advantage. The perception that China only has a comparative advantage for labor intensive products with low technology should be changed based on our analysis. However, China’s advancement in technology should not be overestimated. When comparing the unit value of basic materials of Korea’s and China’s exports, we found that Korea’s export product prices are on average higher than that of China’s, although the gap is reducing. A wider technology gap between Korea and China still exists in the semi-conductor industry, which is one of the most advanced high technology industries throughout the world.

The purpose of this paper is to resolve three problems in ship routing and scheduling systems. Problem 1 is the anticipation of the future cargo transport demand when the shipping models are stochastic based on this demand. Problem 2 is the capacity of these models in processing large number of ships and cargoes within a reasonable time. Problem 3 is the viability of tramp shipping when it comes to real problems.

A commodity-trade forecasting system is developed, an information technology platform is designed and new shipping elements are added to the models to resolve tramp problems of en-route ship bunkering, low-tide port calls and hold-cleaning cost caused by carrying incompatible cargoes.

More realistic stochastic cargo quantity and freight can now be anticipated, larger number of ships and cargoes are now processed in time and shipping systems are becoming more viable.

More support goes to ship owners to make better shipping decisions.

New norms are established in forecasting, upscaling and viability in ship routing and scheduling systems.

The government of Korea considers the promotion of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) as necessary to develop its economy into an open trading nation. As for the countries with which the Korean government is actively investigating possible FTAs, there are Japan, Singapore, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN,) and Mexico. For the time-being, the FTA with Japan seems to be a critical one in practicing Korea s FTA policy. Recently, Korean industries show negative positions against a Korea-Japan FTA, with strong opposition from the labor union insisting that it is evident that Korea will sustain damages in the short-run and the dynamic (long-term) benefits are still ambiguous and uncertain. Regardless of whether their argument is correct or not, it will be difficult for Korea to conclude the FTA with Japan unless there is concrete confidence of balanced economic gains through the FTA between the two countries.