A study on the changes of agricultural import structure according to implementation of FTAs in South Korea

Purpose South Korea has signed and implemented 15 free trade agreements (FTAs) with 52 countries. More than 80 percent of imports of agricultural products came from FTA partner countries in 2015. We can say that South Korea entered the era of an opening in agricultural import sector. It means that FTA is an important factor in causing changes in agricultural imports. As a result of the implementation of the FTA, tariff cuts and other changes in trade conditions could lead to an increase in imports of agricultural products from FTA partner country or diversity of partners. South Korea has implemented 15 FTAs so far, each with a different period of implementation, different scale of trade, and different major trade items. This means that each FTA will have a different size and type of impact on the changes in the import structure. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyze how the FTA actually affected agricultural imports and what type of impact each FTA had. Especially, the authors focused on the effects of trade creation and diversion to analyze the patterns of structural changes in the import of agricultural products according to the implementation of FTAs. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the authors analyzed both trade creation and trade diversion effect through the poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood method based on the previous research gravity model of Magee (2008, p. 353) and Yang and Martinez-Zarzoso (2014, p. 144). The biggest improvement compared to the standard gravity model is that all variables such as GDP, population, and distance are removed. This model cannot be regarded as a gravity model because the basic parameters of gravity model such as GDP, population, distance are excluded, but it can be said that the fixed effect variables replace the basic parameter of the gravity model. Findings According to the analysis, the authors found that the effects of trade creation were apparent in the early stages of FTA implementation before 2011 and the effect of the trade transition was seen in the mid-FTA transition period after 2011. The authors also clarified the pattern of structural changes in the agricultural imports of each FTAs. It is shown that the change in agricultural import structures was more apparent in major FTAs like the Korea-ASEAN, Korea-EU, and Korea-US FTA. In other words, the effects of trade creation and trade diversion in these FTAs were found to be statistically significant. Research limitations/implications The limitations of this study are as follows. First, as multiple FTAs are implemented simultaneously, the effects of individual FTA can be offset. Second, the FTA effect of each item was not reflected, because it was analyzed based on the amount of imports by country. Third, the effect of the trade between the partners was not reflected. Therefore, future studies need to add or supplement these limitations. Practical implications This paper demonstrated through an empirical analysis that the FTA directly affects changes in agricultural import structure. And it proved that the period of FTA implementation, items imported from FTA partner countries, and the size of imports affected the structure of agricultural imports. Of course, changes in the domestic consumption patterns, changes in the supply and demand, conditions of quarantine inspection, and preference of importers are also factors that affect the structure of agricultural imports. It is expected that the effect of trade creation and the effect of trade diversion in agricultural import will be more significant when tariff rates are further decreased due to FTA implementation and domestic demand of agricultural product rises as a result of an economic recovery. As the FTA directly affects changes in agricultural imports, it should be carefully dealt with when signing a new FTA or improving the existing ones. And appropriate measures should be taken to minimize damages to the domestic agricultural sector due to changes in the import structure of agricultural products. Originality/value This paper fulfils an identified need to do research what kinds of effect occurred after FTA implementation in the agricultural sector. An empirical analysis was conducted on the effects of trade creation and diversion of agricultural products, based on the actual results of bilateral trade between the 50 major importers of agricultural products, including the 30 FTA partner countries.