Analysis of Korea’s Export Competitiveness of Environmental Goods(EG) to China in the Era of Carbon Neutrality

The purpose of this study is to suggest the direction of export strategy through analysis of the export competitiveness of Korea's environmental goods to China, considering the possibility of increased demand for environmental goods due to China's ‘carbon neutral' policy. To this end, this study first looked at the discussion on environmental goods in the international community and reviewed prior studies dealing with trade in environmental goods. Next, after examining the methods and procedures for analyzing Korea's export competitiveness of environmental goods to China, Korea's export competitiveness of environmental goods was analyzed by dividing them into Chinese national and regional units. The main results of this study are as follows. First, the environmental goods that have high competitiveness in Korea's exports to China are in the field of ‘environmental monitoring analysis and assessment equipment', and the government's export support policy needs to be expanded as the main field in Korea's export strategy to China in the future. Second, an aggressive export strategy is needed for HS903149 items that show a trend of gradually improving export competitiveness by detailed item, and for some items whose export competitiveness decreases, such as HS847982 and HS847990 items in the ‘Management of solid and hazardous watste and recycling system’ sector, a strategy is needed to continuously maintain export competitiveness to China by seeking ways to expand exports to regions where import demand for the item may occur or increase. Finally, in the regional analysis, it was confirmed that Korea's export competitiveness to China has different export advantages by region, suggesting that future export strategies to China for environmental goods need to be specialized for each detailed field of environmental goods at the regional level.