A Study On The Potential Of South Korea’s Semiconductor Export Trade

Now that we have entered the era of the digital economy,as the core components of the fourth industrial revolution,the demand for semiconductors is increasing day by day,and there is even a global "core shortage" situation.Semiconductors have always been the core of technological competition in today’s era.Various countries have also introduced a series of policies to seize a place in the global semiconductor market.The competition in semiconductor trade has become increasingly fierce.China and South Korea have always had close trade exchanges.In 2020,South Korea’s semiconductor exports to our country will account for 30% of the total export value.At present,Chinese semiconductor field still has a lot of room for development in the world trade market,and South Korea,as our country’s close neighbor,has a strong competitiveness in the international market by virtue of its strong semiconductor strength.Based on the above background,this paper takes South Korea’s semiconductor export trade as the research object,hoping to bring more inspiration and development ideas to our country.This paper adopts the method of literature summarization,qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis to study the export trade of Korean semiconductors.Firstly,the concept of semiconductor and trade potential is defined,and the theory applied in this paper is introduced to lay the theoretical foundation.Then it analyzes the status quo of South Korea’s semiconductor export trade,international competitiveness,reasons for its rise,and challenges it faces.Finally,the stochastic frontier gravity model is used to analyze the data of 37 countries and regions that are the main export targets of South Korea’s semiconductors in the past 25 years through empirical methods to explore the main factors affecting South Korea’s semiconductor export trade,its trade efficiency,and trade potential.Through the study of this paper,the following conclusions are drawn: First,South Korea’s semiconductor export trade is large,and its major semiconductor companies also occupy a relatively high share in the international market.Second,Korean semiconductors have strong competitiveness in the international market,and they also have strong trade complementarity with their trade partners.Third,the success of South Korea’s semiconductor export trade is mainly due to the support of domestic enterprises and governments for technology research and development,personnel training and financial support,and its ability to grasp the development of the world semiconductor trade market and an active export-oriented strategy in foreign trade.The challenges facing South Korean semiconductors are mainly reflected in the limitations of their own development,trade competition from other countries and the impact of the world trade environment.Fourth,for the influencing factors of South Korea’s semiconductor export trade,the GDP level of South Korea and its trade partners,the two can use a common language can promote the export of South Korea’s semiconductors,while the population of the trade partner,the distance and the inland location of the trade partner have a negative impact on the export value;in the trade non-efficiency item,the signing of bilateral FTA,APEC,and the number of patent applications of the trade object play a role in promoting the export of Korean semiconductors,while the tariff,higher education enrolment rates and R＆D expenditures as a percentage of GDP of the trade partner have a negative impact on the export value.Fifth,the overall level of export trade efficiency of South Korea’s semiconductors is low,with an average of only 0.137,and only Malaysia’s trade efficiency exceeds 0.5.At present,Korean semiconductors still have large trade potential and room for expansion,and 7 of the top 10 in the average trade potential value are located in Asia.South Korea has great potential for the export of Chinese semiconductors.The predicted trade potential in 2020 is 68.983 billion US dollars,ranking first,which can further strengthen the cooperation between China and South Korea in semiconductors.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper believes that the development of the Korean semiconductor industry has certain reference significance for our country.China and South Korea are both countries with a late start in semiconductors.South Korea has become a semiconductor powerhouse by means of imitating to catching up,and has also experienced semiconductor trade frictions,which has certain commonalities with the development of our country’s semiconductor industry and the difficulties it faces.At the same time,the empirical results show that South Korea has a great potential for trade in semiconductor exports to China.The domestic emphasis on the level of science and technology education and the external regional economic integration strategy play an important role in the development of the semiconductor industry.Therefore,the future direction of our country’s semiconductor industry can start from strengthening technological innovation internally and promoting trade cooperation externally.It is of great significance to further deepen trade cooperation between China and South Korea.