• Korea Trade Review
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.53-68
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• 2022

It has great significance to estimate CIF-FOB margins of international trade. It certainly helps develop statistics on transport costs of international trade and provides basic data for econometric analysis of transport costs. It also contributes much to our standing the correlation between the margins and trade partners' geographical distance as well as one between the margins and trading products. However, the quality issue of international trade statistics renders it very difficult to derive trustworthy CIF-FOB margin estimates. Utilizing various analytical approaches, this study intended to acquire credible estimates of CIF-FOB margins for Korea's total imports and for country/product specific imports data. Major findings are as follows. First, the average of CIF-FOB margins of Korea's total imports is 7.3% and is generally declining. Second, country level analysis provides credible estimates for CIF-FOB margins of Korea's imports from four partners (Japan, the US, Australia, and Brazil). The differences in margins among these four countries are caused by geographical distance and characteristics of traded products. Third, product level analysis reveals that the margins of gold and passenger vehicles are fairly low while those of primary products tend to be high.