Retail in Asia

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Korea needs to reinvigorate e-commerce with China

Seoul Skyline Korea - Retail in Asia

China’s foreign trade volume declined 7 percent but its online trade jumped 28 percent last year. On the other hand, Korea — China’s third-largest trading partner in 2015 — fell to ninth place in online trade.

The contrasting figures point to the need for Korea to revitalise online trade with the world’s second-largest economy to make up for the fall in offline trade, industry sources said Sunday.

Ali Research, the think tank of Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, recently released an E-Commerce Connectivity Index (ECI), which measured the level of online trade between China and its 20 major trading partners. Last year it ranked Korea ninth — the same as Russia — with an ECI of 32.

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The ECI included B2C (business-to-consumer) transactions as well as B2B (business-to-business) trades, meaning that direct overseas purchases and reverse purchases can affect it.

Considering Korea was China’s third-largest trading partner following the U.S. and Japan last year, the nation’s online trade ranking falls far short of its overall status as China’s counterpart, the sources said.

Korea’s ECI in China’s online imports stood at 25, rising two notches to seventh place but remaining lower than Mexico and Indonesia. China imported from Korea more than any other countries, but Korea failed to be one of the top-five online exporters to China.

Likewise, Korea was the third-largest buyer of the Chinese products last year but fell to 12th place among online importers from China.

Read more about why Korea’s trading system needs to change quickly to meet the new trend of e-commerce in China, the world’s largest trading company.

(Source: Korea Times)