국제교역환경변화에 따른 해상교역패턴 변화 분석 - 우리나라 주요 컨테이너 항만을 중심으로 -

Abstract

In a rapidly changing trade environment, a variety of regional economic integrations and free trade agreements (FTAs) leading to a trade creation effect by eliminating the trade barriers, consequently increasing trade among member countries, or a trade diversion effect by reducing imports from non-member countries, are said to be of great importance to the fierce competition faced by major world ports to secure container volumes. In addition to the port competition between countries, domestic competition between ports is also getting severe within Korea. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the trade patterns of major Korean ports, including the ports of Busan, Incheon, and Gwangyang, by utilizing a gravity model, which can demonstrate the changes in maritime trade in accordance with the changing international trade environment. The gravity model developed in the 1960s is the most common formulation to predict bilateral trade flows based on economic variables including population, Gross Domestics Product (GDP), and the distance between countries. Despite its usefulness, it has been rarely employed in the maritime context. In the analysis, total container throughputs were used as the dependent variable, while per capita GDP, distance, and economic freedom were used as the explanatory variables. The economic integrations and FTAs, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Plus Three (ASEAN+3), 10 countries, plus Korea, China and Japan; the European Union (EU), 28 countries; the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 3 countries; and the Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR), 4 countries; were used as dummy variables. According to the results of this study, first, it was found that the entire maritime container trade patterns in Korea are proportional to the overall market size of its trading partners, as measured by their GDP, while it is inversely proportional to the distance. In addition, ASEAN+3, one of the main regional economic integrations, has a positive effect on the maritime container trade, the so-called trade creation effect, while the EU, NAFTA and MERCOSUR have a negative effect on the maritime container trade; the so-called trade diversion effect. Second, the resulting analysis of maritime container trade patterns of each major port in Korea demonstrate that Busan Port shows results similar to the entire maritime trade patterns in Korea. In the case of Incheon Port, the economic integrations including ASEAN+3 and NAFTA are shown to have the trade creation effect with a positive effect on maritime container trade; whereas, the distance variable exerts a relatively larger impact than in both the Busan and Gwangyang ports, due to the trade structures concentrated in China and Southeast Asia. NAFTA is revealed to have a positive effect on maritime container trade and FTAs also have a positive effect on maritime container trade in Gwanyang port. These findings provide valuable insights for academics, managers as well as policy makers engaged in the port industry to develop strategies for obtaining container volumes.