Japan is the world‘s largest importer of marine products, and also prefers them the most in the world. Half of Japan's consumption is imported and Japanese consumer preferences have not changed by recent years. Recently, by following the world trend of open-market trade, Japan has reduced or removed tariff and non-tariff barriers. Because of this, Japanese marine market is now very competitive in the world. The greatest competitor of Korea in the Japanese market is China. In this analysis I will compare Korea's competitiveness (The 75% share of Korea's marine product export is toward the japanese market) with China's competitiveness. After this analysis, I will then set forth some suggestions to increase the competitive power of Korean marine products in the Japanese marine market.
In this study, I will analyze the production, consumption, and trade of Japanese marine products. Using the methods which professor Ki-Soo Kim(1999) applied to japanese marine products, I analyse Korea and China's competitive power from 2001 to 2003. In this analysis I use the RCA, RMI, and TSC competitiveness indices. Our data are derived from FAO Reports, and also Korea's, China's, and Japan's ministry of maritime affairs & fisheries statistical Reports.
Korea still has some competitive power in the Japanese market, which is exposed to the existence of heavy competition. However, Korea's comparative advantage has been decreasing due to the influence of growing China's competitive strength.
Consequently, Korea may have to forcefully supply Domestic products, secure product differentiation, and expand its export inventory to new products.
In order to achieve korea's export plans to increase its share of exports in the Japanese market, Korea must diversify its export in terms of the kinds and quality of products and accommodate to Japanese imports demands.
In particular, because of cheap chinese maritime products in the japanese market, Korea's competitiveness gradually has been decreasing in the japanese Market.
China's exports to japan seem to increase rapidly, but because of the lack of skill and facilities, most of those exports are only raw materials. Korea tries to increase its competitive power by making more processed materials and refined products. Japanese consumption preference demands the high quality of products , so if Korea concentrates on more processed products and the quality of products, Korea will be successful in expanding the share of marine product export in the japanese market.