"South Korea Widens Gap with Taiwan, No.1 in China's High-Tech Market"

Mu-hyeop "Need to Boost Export Engines of Next-Generation New Industries like System Semiconductors, Pharmaceuticals, and Aerospace"

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Sun-mi] It has been analyzed that South Korea's market share in the US-China high-tech import market is being influenced by the US-China advanced industry hegemony competition. In particular, the gap in market share between South Korea and Taiwan, which ranks first, is gradually widening in the Chinese high-tech market.

On the 22nd, the Korea International Trade Association's Institute for International Trade and Commerce announced through the report "Trends and Implications of Korean Exports in the US-China High-Tech Import Market" that since the US-China dispute, both the United States and China have been reducing mutual dependence in the high-tech industry and diversifying import sources to third countries, resulting in changes in the market share of Korean products.

In the US high-tech import market, the market share of Chinese products fell by 9.1 percentage points over four years from 2017 to 2021, while during the same period, the shares of Vietnam (4.3 percentage points) and Taiwan (3.4 percentage points) increased significantly. South Korea's import market share rose slightly by 0.7 percentage points, but its import ranking improved by two places from 8th to 6th.

Meanwhile, in the Chinese high-tech import market, the US market share has continuously declined, while the shares of Taiwan and Vietnam have expanded significantly. From 2017 to 2021, the US share in the Chinese high-tech market dropped by 2.7 percentage points, whereas Taiwan and Vietnam's shares increased by 5.4 percentage points and 2.9 percentage points respectively, showing a clear change in import sources. Since 2013, South Korea has maintained the second-highest import market share in the Chinese high-tech market following Taiwan, but the gap with Taiwan widened significantly from 1.8 percentage points in 2017 to 9.3 percentage points last year.

Kim Min-woo, Senior Researcher at the Institute for International Trade and Commerce, stated, "As the US-China trade dispute accelerates, both opportunities and structural crises are emerging simultaneously in the world's largest advanced industry markets, the US and China," and emphasized, "In the mid to long term, it is necessary to strengthen export capabilities across the entire system semiconductor sector, from design to packaging, like Taiwan, and actively expand next-generation key industries such as aerospace and pharmaceuticals."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.