Analysis of potential e-commerce transit demand to maritime transport among Korea, China and Japan

The global e-commerce (B2C) market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 10%, reaching 2.3 trillion US dollars by 2018. The e-commerce market has been growing dramatically since 2010 and its growth has been outstanding especially in the Asia-Pacific region including Korea. The e-commerce market among Korea, China and Japan has also been growing rapidly. The growth of the e-commerce market among the three countries is expected to rise even further. As the e-commerce market grows the ports have been seeking ways to take advantage of such growth. In particular, the benefits of being able to shift the existing air-shipping services to the sea-shipping services. So far, there has been no detailed analysis of specific demand of the sea delivery in terms of the e-commerce products. Korea is located at the center of Northeast Asia and has Busan Port, which is the 6th largest ports in the world. Based on this advantage, it is necessary to establish an e-commerce logistics base in Korea. This will enable Korea to serve as the hub for e-commerce to China and Japan. Therefore, this study will analyze the expected e-commerce throughput among Korea-China and Korea-Japan in order to find out if there is any possibility to shift the current air-shipping deliveries to the sea-shipping deliveries. If so, this study will see how much of portion can be shifted to the sea-shipping deliveries. In doing so, this study will look at the throughputs by 2030.