Small And Medium Enterprises (SME) Adjustments To Information Technology (IT) In Trade Facilitation: The South Korean Experience

This paper examines how IT was incorporated into cargo clearance procedures in Korea, and what its implications are for traders, SMEs in particular. After a short introduction in Section I, Section II examines the definition of SMEs in Korea, and SMEs' role in Korean trade. In Section III, the authors describe the history of the adoption of IT in Korean cargo clearance. Section IV describes the results of the adoption of IT into cargo clearance. They find that IT has significantly lowered costs and sped up the cargo clearance process. Section V includes some case examples of individual firms which use the e-trade network for cargo clearance.