South Korea Aims to Make China One of Its Major Trading Partners

Although South Korea has no diplomatic relations with China, indirect trade between the two countries is surging, and Seoul now aims to make China its third-biggest export market after the United States and Japan.

Businessmen here involved in trade with China said two-way trade through middlemen in Hong Kong more than doubled to $230 million in the first nine months of 1984 from $100 million in the same 1983 period.

China More Important

The state-run Korea Trade Promotion Corp. (KOTRA) recently staged a seminar to spur on efforts by South Korean firms to sell their products to China.

In the seminar, originally meant for only 100 businessmen but crowded out by about 250, KOTRA emphasized that China should be considered more important than Latin America or Africa in the list of new markets to be explored by the Koreans.

According to Park Chan-Hyuk, director of KOTRA’s Hong Kong center, told the seminar that China “in the long term could become our third-biggest export market after the United States and Japan.”