<Anchor>

Let's start with Kwon Ae-ri's friendly economy. Reporter Kwon: It's no exaggeration to say that our country is actually living on exports, and it seems that our share of global exports will drop below 3% in a very long time.

<Reporter>

Yes. The international export fund's IMF exports this year, as well as South Korea's share of them, have been counted by August.

Korea's share of this has been in the late 2% range. Except for January and April, it's still at 2.8, or 2.9%.

Thus, by August, Korea's share of world trade was 2.9 percent. It is still the world's seven largest exporters. We are the seventh largest exporting country in the world.

However, as Korea moved from 2008 to 2009, the share of global exports increased significantly from 2.6 to 3% in one year, as it transcended the financial crisis better than other countries.

Since then, I've never been below that level between 3 and 3.2% for 11 years. But in 11 years, it is more likely that our exports will be reduced to the second half of the world.

This year's statistics have not yet been finalized, but the situation is unlikely to change significantly this year as Korea's exports have continued to decline since September, even more than other major trading nations.

The world economy is sluggish, but we're seeing more damage.

<Anchor>

I know that the whole world was sluggish. What could be the reason why Korea's exports were so weak?

<Reporter>

There are many reasons, but the impact of China's sluggishness is huge. There are also problems with our export scale to and from certain items, such as semiconductors.

We rely on China for about a quarter of our total exports. Last year, China imported over 200 billion dollars from Korea.

But this year, China's imports are rarely increasing. What's more noticeable to us is that Korea's share of China's imports has decreased significantly.

Since the second half of 2016, when trade relations with China have been aggravated due to the issue of Sadd, our share of China's imports remained 9.9% in 2017 and 9.7% in 2018.

In fact, after we first climbed over Japan in 2013 as the largest importer of China, the country that imports the most. In particular, except for the first half of 2015 and the first half of 2016, when trade was very active, this is the share we have maintained in China's imports.
But until August this year, it dropped to 8.5%. It is no different from Japan and Taiwan, who are second and third.

China is showing signs of stagnation in trade with the United States during trade conflicts, and imports of intermediate goods from Korea are not active. In particular, since the semiconductor industry, which accounts for 30% of Korea's mass exports, is not good, the proportion of Korea's mass exports has been reduced.

<Anchor>

How about next year? Is it as hard as this year or not?

<Reporter>

A week later. December 15 is a deadline that the United States has put in place another massive tariff on Chinese goods.

So if the US-North Korea negotiating before the 15th does not spread the conflict to some extent, and does not add any additional tariffs, the US-China trade conflict is not completely resolved, but in the medium term It will be.

There is a view that this may be better than this year when US-China conflict was spreading. And there are some prospects that the semiconductor industry will be better next year than next year.

So it's unlikely that exports will drop to double digits each month like this year. It's hard to get better, but there's a view that you'll get better in the midst of a slowdown.

But anyway, this year was difficult. Since the turnaround is unlikely next year, 47% of Korean companies will have to tighten their contracts next year. 34% will remain the same.

In short, most of us are planning our business in such a way that we do not increase investment or employment significantly.

We are a country where export levels are at the core of all economic, employment, investment and stock prices. I expect it to be better than this year next year, but I still have to watch. I think I should say this.