• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.179-198
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• 2023

Purpose - There is a paucity of literature dealing with exporters' compliance issues in e-commerce exports. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature by exploring customs initiatives to facilitate the e-commerce exports of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the changed compliance environment. The central question of this study was divided into five subquestions: first regarding the pros and cons of trade facilitation measures for Korean e-commerce export clearance; second and third questions about risk and compliance management for facilitation fourth about instruments, the changes in Korean SME compliance burden in e-commerce exports, and ways to improve trade facilitation for e-commerce exports. Design/methodology - This study adopts a qualitative approach using a case study method to understand the SME experience in Korean e-commerce export compliance procedures. A qualitative method was selected to answer research questions requiring an in-depth understanding of the regulatory procedures of customs administration and exporters' compliance burden. Because this study addresses the changing compliance environment for which statistical data is insufficient, a quantitative method is considered inappropriate. Based on the approach, data were collected using multiple sources, including an extensive literature review, interviews, and field observations. Thematic pattern matching was applied to interpret the data. Findings - This study examined ways to support SMEs in the changed e-commerce export compliance environment. Facilitation measures for e-commerce exports have contributed to SME access to global markets, simplifying export clearance procedures, and saving exporters' compliance costs. However, such instruments are limited in promoting SME compliance capabilities to cope with intensified competition and strengthened controls over foreign exporters in cross-border e-commerce. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of reshaping facilitation measures for e-commerce exports based on risk and compliance management theories to a system encouraging exporters' voluntary compliance. Originality/value - This study's academic significance derives from verifying the relationship between trade facilitation instruments and risk and compliance management procedures using an actual case in Korea. It is also of practical importance in navigating the directions for improving facilitation measures for e-commerce exports in a changed compliance environment.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.161-178
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• 2023

Purpose - purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of the investment facilitation levels of 11 RCEP countries (excluding Myanmar, Brunei, and Laos due to lack of data) on China's outward foreign direct investments(OFDI) using balanced panel data from 2010 to 2019. Design/methodology - First, four investment facilitation measurement indicators (regulatory environment, infrastructure, financial market, ease of doing business) were selected,investment facilitation scores of the 11 countries were obtained using the principal component analysis, an investment gravity model was established with nine explanatory variables (investment facilitation level, market size, population, geographic distance, degree of opening, tax level, natural resources, whether the country is an APEC member or not, and whether a valid bilateral investment treaty with China has been concluded) were used to establish an investment gravity model, and regression analyses were conducted with OLS and system GMM. Findings - The results of the regression analyses showed that investment facilitation levels had the greatest effect on China's OFDI, all four first-level indicators had positive effects on China's OFDI, and among them, the institutional environment had the greatest effect. In addition, it was shown that explanatory variables such as market size, population, geographical distance, degree of openness, natural resources, and whether or not a valid bilateral investment treaty has been concluded would have positive effects on China's OFDI, while tax levels and APEC membership would impede China's OFDI to some extent. Originality/value - Since the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEPT) came into effect not long ago, there are not so many studies on the effects of investment facilitation levels of RCEP member states on China's OFDI, and the investment facilitation measurement index constructed in this paper is relatively systematic and scientific because it includes all the contents of investment facilitation related to the life cycle of company's foreign direct investments.

• 한국IT서비스학회지
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• 제19권6호
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• pp.177-189
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• 2020

The OECD has assessed Korea as the third highest in trade facilitation worldwide. The paperless trade of Korea is world class based on uTradeHub : national e-trade service's infrastructure for trade community. Over 800 trade-related document standards provide interoperability of message exchange and trade process automation among exporters, importers, banks, customs, airlines, shippers, forwarders and trade authorities. Most one-to-one unit processes are perfectly paperless & online; however, from the perspective of process flow, there is a lack of streamlining end-to-end trade processes spread over many different parties. This situation causes the trade community to endure repetitive-redundant load for handling trade documents. The trade community has a strong demand for seamless trade flow. For streamlining the trade process, processes with data should flow seamlessly to multilateral parties. Flowing data with an optimized process is the critical success factor to accomplish seamless trade. This study proposes four critical digital trade infrastructures as a platform service : (1) data-centric Intelligent Document Recognition(IDR), (2) data-driven Digital Document Flow (DDF), (3) platform based Digital Collaboration & Communication(DCC), and (4) new digital Trade Facilitation Index (dTFI) for precise assessment of K-Trade Digital Trade Framework. The results of new dTFI analyses showed that redundant reentry load was reduced significantly over the whole trade and logistics process. This study leads to the belief that if put into real-world application can provide huge economic gains by building a new global value chain of the K-trade eco network. A new digital trade framework will be invaluable in promoting national soft power for enhancing global competitiveness of the trade community. It could become the advanced reference model of next trade facilitation infrastructure for developing countries.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제27권1호
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• pp.101-118
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• 2023

Purpose - Korea became a trillion-dollar trading country in 2011. With the exponential increase in Korea's trade volume over the past decades, trade-related administrative burdens per capita for Korea Customs became enormous, for which the government established the Single Window, a trade-facilitating system, in 2004 to enhance the efficiency of customs-clearing procedures for traders. This paper focuses on finding whether the Korean Single Window system affects the country's trade facilitation positively through an empirical methodology. Design/methodology - To find empirical evidence that Single Window affects trade facilitation for the customs-clearing procedure, this study assumes that a time-efficient environment enables the handling of the increase in trade volume, under which four independent variables related to import customs-clearing procedures and two dependent variables to import were adopted for empirical analysis. The import customs procedures are classified into four steps from port entry to declaration acceptance. To understand the relationship between variables, scattered plots and correlation coefficients were calculated. Eight hypotheses were set and underwent simple linear regression. The data for analysis were collected by Korea Customs, and were about the lead time of import, the volume of imports in million USD, and the number of import declarations reported to customs offices on a monthly basis from 2005 to 2013. Findings - Six of the eight hypotheses showed the statistically significant result that lead time in the import customs-clearing procedure positively affects the number of import declaration reports and import volume. Specifically, Hypothesis 1, Hypothesis 2, and Hypothesis 3 strongly support the assumption lead time in import customs declaration has an inverse relationship with the number of import declarations, which means that the shorter the import lead time, the more import declaration increases. Research Limitations/Implications - With limited data accessibility to the government's custom-sclearing procedures, only the import lead time for customs clearance were adopted as independent variables. This paper, however, successfully found that the Single Window system contributed to trade facilitation. Originality/value - This study found that the time-saving Single Window system of Korea Customs enables itself to manage an exponentially-increasing trade volume by creating a trade-facilitating environment for customs personnel and traders, which may be a unique implication found through quantitative methodology.

• International journal of advanced smart convergence
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• 제2권2호
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• pp.43-47
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• 2013

Within the United Nations framework of the Economic and Social Council, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) serves as the focal point for trade facilitation recommendations and electronic business standards, covering both commercial and government business processes that can foster growth in international trade and related services. Accordingly United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) was established, as a subsidiary, intergovernmental body of the UNECE Committee on Trade, mandated to develop a program of work of global relevance to achieve improved worldwide coordination and cooperation in these areas. Domestic development and distribution of electronic documents to be conformed to international standards, it is enough to have the role of international activities continue to supply part of the domestic industry and the trends in participation and international standard.

• 통상정보연구
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• 제6권3호
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• pp.203-224
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• 2004

The purpose of this study is to review and analyze the protection measures for the importer's interests through the utilization of electronic delivery order(e-D/O) with the implementation of trade facilitation measures such as the simplification of customs procedures by the Korea Customs Service. The Korea Customs Service has been introducing several custom facilitation measures through the use of EDI system in the export and import processes. Korea has also already achieved a comparable level of sophistication in trade automation and custom simplification field. However, the full benefits of the trade automation and custom simplification measures have not yet achieved through the frequent illegal delivery of the imported goods in the bonded areas. Therefore, it is argued in this study that the introduction and the full utilization of e-D/O would help to reap the trade automation and custom simplification measures in Korea. In conclusion, it is emphasized that it would be very crucial for the Korean government to introduce the trusted repository for distribution of the electronic trade-related documents and the construction of the one stop single window platform for the trade and customs facilitation.

• 무역상무연구
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• 제47권
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• pp.263-298
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• 2010

The global trading system is vulnerable to terrorist exploitation while the international trade is an essential element for the economic development. Customs has a unique role in the international trade to provide increased security while ensuring facilitation of the legitimate flow of goods and the role of Customs has become more and more indispensable these days. In response to this trend, the World Customs Organization(WCO), the organization of more than 170 Customs administrations all over the world, adopted an international framework("SAFE Framework") in 2005, which includes the Authorized Economic Operator(AEO) concept, whereby a party involved in the international movement of goods would be approved by Customs as complying with the supply chain security standards, and given benefits, such as simplified Customs procedure and less Customs intervention. In this stream, the Japanese government has developed and promoted AEO Program in close cooperation with the business sector, aiming at ensuring security while facilitating legitimate trade. For that purpose, Japan Customs, as a main entity in the field of international trade, has developed comprehensive AEO program with combination of programs for importers, exporters, warehouse operators, Customs brokers and logistics operators, such as forwarders and carriers, which are consistent with the "SAFE Framework" developed by the WCO. The purpose of this paper aims to analyse the introduction plans of AEO program for the trade security and trade facilitation with Japanese AEO system.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.3-25
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• 2013

This paper evaluates whether the proposed FTAAP is a desirable policy option for APEC member economies and the world economy. More specifically, this paper qualitatively investigates whether the FTAAP satisfies conditions for a trade bloc to generate positive and sufficient net trade creation effect. In addition, this paper estimates the likely impact of the FTAAP by using a CGE model analysis. From the qualitative analysis based on statistical data, this paper strongly argues that the FTAAP can be a desirable regional trade bloc able to generate positive gains from freer trade. From the ex-ante scenario analysis using both static and capital accumulation CGE Models, this paper concludes that the FTAAP has great potential for improving welfare of participating APEC economies and will boost economic growth in the region. In particular, the FTAAP would be even better if it can be linked with liberalization of trade in services and enhanced trade facilitation.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• 제23권7호
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• pp.96-112
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• 2019

Purpose - "Trade Facilitation" aims the easier flow of trade across borders, driven not only by effective customs administration, the efficiency of appropriate authorities, but also by telecommunications, the quality of infrastructures and competent logistics. Facilitating trade will help lower trade development costs as well as improve economic development and enhance economic benefits for emerging economies at a time when imports and exports are sent in and out across borders several times in the form of intermediate and final products. Not only that, globalization is being accelerated, which in turn increases competitiveness and this makes logistics one of the key factors when it comes to international trade. Highly efficient logistics services promote product movement, ensure product safety and delivery speed, and reduce trade costs between countries. The purpose of this study is, by using the LPI indices based on gravity model estimates, to analyze the impact of each LPI component on trade with the 20 biggest exporting countries of Northeast Asian countries-Korea, Japan, and China-which account for 19.05% of global exports. Design/methodology - Also, this study statistically analyzes the impact of trade on Northeast Asian countries' top 20 exporting countries, using the LPI indices relevant to Trade Facilitation based on the gravity model estimates. Findings - As a result, it was turned out that the distance, GDP, and the LPI components have relevant impact on the trade exports of all three countries but demonstrated little relation to the demographic perspective. Originality/value - The study also found we can increase the trade volume by improving three countries' trade partners' LPI indices since Korea, Japan, and China share most of their 20 biggest trade partners.

• 통상정보연구
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• 제15권4호
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• pp.267-286
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• 2013

WCO TRS는 국경통관절차의 효율성을 평가하는 방법이며 간단히 무역원활화를 개선하는 관점에서 무역원활화 활동을 측정하는 도구이다. 이와 같은 TRS는 국경통과절차상의 문제점을 확인하고 확인된 문제점에 대한 개선책을 마련하기 위한 기초 자료로 활용될 수 있으며 무역원활화 개선 수준을 확인시켜 주며 다른 국가와의 비교 자료로 활용될 수 있다. 또한 더 나아가 개선된 무역원활화를 통해 무역업계의 경쟁력 강화에도 기여하게 될 것이다. 이 같은 유용성을 가지고 있는 TRS를 보다 효과적으로 활용하기 위해서 한국 관세행정당국은 현재까지 추진해오고 있는 CLIS를 통한 물품반출소요시간 측정을 지속적으로 해 나가야 할 뿐만 아니라 수입에만 치중되어 있는 반출소요시간 연구를 수출 TRS까지 확대해 나가서 전체 수출입 물품 반출시간의 효율화에 힘써야 할 것이다. 또한 중국, 일본, 미국과 같은 주요 교역상대국과 공동 TRS를 추진하여 자국내 뿐만 아니라 전체 국제무역공급망의 간소화, 표준화, 조화가 이루어질 수 있도록 해야 할 것이며 아울러 한국 관세청의 최첨단 물품반출소요시간 간소화 경험을 후진국에 전수하여 전체 국제물류공급망의 원활화에 기여할 뿐만 아니라 후진국의 수출입절차상의 역량강화(Capacity Building)에 기여함으로 국제적 위상제고에도 기여할 수 있도록 해야 할 것이다.