A container is defined as “a uniform, sealed reusable metal ‘box’ in which goods are shipped”(Murphy and Wood, 2008).1) Containers are a reusable transport and storage unit for moving products and even raw materials between locations or countries. Containers make it easier to handle products, save time and secure loaded products. Containers are interchangeable amongtransport modes and provide the advantages offered by each of these several transport modes. These advantages cause increases in the use of containers in contemporary international trade. In international trade, containers are mostly used in maritime trading because major trading goods are transported by ocean vessel. Since major Korean trading products come in many forms from bulk cargo, such as coal and grains, to machinery products and electronic goods, containers are heavily used in international trade through Korea. The high growth of the Korean economy has led to an increase in maritime trading volume and consequent increased container volume in Korea. Maritime trading volume in Korea reached 16.341 million TEU in 2009. Containers were main transporting mode of clothes, shoes, and media devices in 1990 when the trading volume was9.99 million TEU. Major exports from Korea such as cell-phones are display devices still relied on containers for trading in 2009. Since secondary industries formed the largest part of the economy, this trend is expected to continue.The structural changes to the Korean economy may lead changes in international trading volume as well as changes in the items of traded. Major exports have moved from labor-intensive products to capital-intensive products. However, the available evidence on the relationship betweeninternational containers volume and economic growth in Korea is not conclusive even though it is clear that world economic growth influence international trade in Korea. In the past, most export containers were loaded with clothes, agricultural and fishery products and few were loaded withmachines, equipment and industrial materials. Also, trading volume was not enough to take a significant share of the world’s trade. However, at the moment, Korea has the fifteenth largest economy in the world. Most of the export containers are loaded with small and expensive high-technology materials and products as well as machines, equipment and industrial materials. This is mainly because of the rapid growth and industrialization of the Korean economy, in other words, changes to the industrial structure. This paper provides an analysis of the determinants of Korean maritime export and import functions. The study focuses on the export and import of ‘Containers’, since containers are the contemporary transporting mode. Internal and external environments affecting international trade are examined for the purpose of this study. The internal environment consists of the improvements to the industrial structure, domestic price, domestic consumption, and so on. The external environment includes the world price, world trade volume, development of competing countries’ economies, and so on. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of changes in theindustrial structure on international container trade in Korea as well as other macroeconomic factors. Since previous studies dealing with volatility in international trade focus on the exchange rate, the role of the changes in the industrial structure on international trade has been neglected. The data employed for this study are quarterly and cover the years 1995 to 2008
