South Korean exporters may face serious setbacks in the second half of the year as spreading concerns of a double-dip recession in the United States and Japan are discouraging buyers from expanding their business there, a report said Thursday.
"There is a possibility the increase rate of our exports may dwindle in the second half of the year due to shrinking orders from buyers of key export nations fearing double-dip recessions,"
said Han Seon-hee, head of a business information bureau at the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, better known as KOTRA.
The KOTRA report was based on a survey of 30 leading companies in five nations, also including Germany, France and China.
The report said many large businesses in the United States, such as household and personal products maker Colgate-Palmolive Co., were already focused on cutting costs as they saw a great possibility of a recession.
Others, such as the world's largest wholesaler of computer parts, EverTek Computer Corp., said they saw little or no chance of a double-dip recession, but that they, too, were cutting down
new imports as part of risk-controlling measures, the report said.
The report said such concerns over a recession in the United States were also affecting conditions in China, Japan and South Korea, whose shipments of goods to the U.S. make up a large
portion of their exports.
South Korea earlier estimated its exports to grow 22.4 percent to a record high of US$445 billion this year based on a 11.8 percent increase in the second half of the year from the same period in 2009.