• Journal of Korea Port Economic Association
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.363-384
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• 2008

This study aims at improving Korea's competitiveness in port logistics through marketing strategy with integrating the conceptual approach into the empirical one and combining both the oldest military treatise and the newest evaluating model in social science that was applied by the HFP(hierarchical fuzzy process) model enhanced by the KJ method. The empirical results of this study show Busan in the middle among subject ports. At present, Korea plays a reciprocal role in the port market in East Asia, but in the medium- and long-term, Korea's ports will vie together with most major ports in the East Asian region. A descriptive investigation shows that Korea's developing tasks in port logistics must be considered in the context of the direction for developing port policies, the necessity of expanding port facilities in the capital region, securing the sufficient traffic volume through the establishment of the hinterland linking system and its positive utilization, and reforming the direction for developing the global logistics through increased port competitiveness. In the short- and medium-term, Korea must use the opportunity factor of 'Growth and open door policy of China' as a geoeconomic advantage and to utilize Korea's ports as a gate to Chinese foreign trade. With the rise of China's economy, China also plays a significant role in both port and airport markets. Hence, the linking system between the two must be established to meet the expanding traffic volume, especially in the capital area. Moreover, it is necessary for Korea to secure port logistics through the establishment of the hinterland linking system and its positive utilization. The great accomplishment of this paper is to present strategies to increase Korea's port competitiveness in the rapidly changing environments of world logistics with the focus on both the oldest military strategic treatise and the newest empirical method in social science. In order to reinforce this study, it needs further compensative research because the evaluation structure could be subdivided with more extensive and precise criteria.