Exporters Pessimistic About Shipments to China

Most Korean exporters believe shipments to China will not recover within this year because they are losing out to increasingly competitive local rivals.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry polled 300 exporters and found that 84.3 percent were pessimistic about the recovery of the shipments.

Some 40 percent said exports to China will take two to five years to recover, though 27.3 percent expect improvements next year. Some 17 percent said they will never rebound completely because China's industry is catching up fast. Only 15.7 percent said their exports will recover now that China has lifted lockdown restrictions.

Many exporters feel threatened by China's rapid technological growth. Some 36.6 percent said Chinese technology is on a par with Korea's, and 3.7 percent said Korea is actually falling behind. Seven of 10 companies expect that China's growth will continue to surpass Korea's or fall to a similar rate.

"Exports to China are sluggish because of falling chip prices and mounting inventories, but China is also increasing self-sufficient in terms of intermediate materials that it used to import from Korea," the KCCI said.

Given that Korea's exports to China have stagnated for the last 10 years, they are unlikely to get a significant boost even if chip prices recover.