• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.205-225
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• 2012

I use panel data of sales by the foreign subsidiaries of the U.S. MNCs to examine whether trading blocs create more or less FDI and the impacts on FDI of the extended market size created by forming blocs. By employing a region-fixed effects model, I find that countries forming trading blocs attract more FDI, particularly from non-member countries, but that FDI does not always increase with the market size of the blocs. As the market size increases, FDI increases only for large blocs. However, these findings are sensitive to model specifications. A policy implication is that a country considering forming or joining a trading bloc with a view to attract FDI may want to form a trading bloc with a country or countries with a large market size.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.267-284
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• 2004

The expansion of regionalism has resulted in the creation of blocs of the world economy, so that those countries not belonging to one or more blocs can discriminated. Though recently singed on the bill of FTA with Chile, Korea is actually alienated from major stream of the blocs. Therefore, Korea government makes efforts to contract more FTAs with countries such as Singapore and Japan. FTA is believed to be an important method to secure export and national competitiveness in the long term. Therefore, we need to exactly understand critical issues and the long-run effect of FTA. The paper tries to find out important issues and potential strategies relating to electronic commerce in Korea-Singapore and Korea-Japan FTA. According to the historical facts, economic effect of FTA depends a lot on the contents of the agreement. Therefore, additional intensive studies are required before contracting FTA in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.819-830
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• 2003

Korea is facing great threat from other countries as a major global sourcing site for textile and apparel products. The threat has been augmented by changes in external environment such as advents of Trading Blocs and Free Trade Area(FTA) as well as internal environment such as hikes in labor cost and lack of flexibility in accommodating international buyers' needs. This study analyzed international buyers' sourcing activities in Korea for the purpose of developing strategies to enhance competitiveness of the Korean textile and apparel industries in the global market. The data used in this study were gathered by surveying 52 non-Korean textile and apparel product buyers with cooperation of the Korea Federation of Textile Industries (KOFOTI). The data were analyzed by mean, frequency, Pearson correlation coefficient, and ｘ$^2$ analysis. The results indicated that Korea is still attractive to many international buyers especially to those who have been engaged in global sourcing for longer periods of time with bigger purchasing budgets. However, in order to expand and solidify their customer bases, Korean companies should focus more on developing competitively priced value added products a step ahead of their foreign competitors, diversifying their marketing channels including internet.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.379-391
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• 1993

Present-day world economy is characterized by : technology nationalism, economic regionalism, market protectionism, multinational corporations, efc. All nations are striving for intensifying national economic rivalry and seeking after their own interests above everything else. Many regions of the world are also forming trading blocs, which could negatively affect nonmember states. The ultimate way to meet these difficulties is to establish production facilities in the countries imposing trade regulations. However, as the existing models of direct forrign investment (DFI) do not account for the particular nature of Korean firm's DFI activities, a new point of departure is imperative. It is because of this that Korean firms have only limited firm-specific advantages, the basic precondition of extant DFI theories, compared with their developed counterparts.