초록 (영문)
The purpose of this paper is to study how the political and economic environment for the integration of goods markets in South and North Korea can be constructed and what is the possibility to be done so. To do this, the study examines the overall situation of the inter-Korean trade with the focus on its structure and characteristics. Furthermore some institutional measures are put forward to increase the level of the inter-Korean trade. For the past decade, there have been a lot of intermittent negotiations to expand the economic trade between the two Koreas. However the negotiations failed to have born fruits largely because the both sides were not assured of the consequences of the expanded economic exchanges between them, which would be negative on their political and military regimes. After the June Summit, the political environment between the South and North Korea has been drastically improved, but the macroeconomic situations are not favorable to extend the bilateral economic exchanges, through which to reach an integration of goods markets in the foreseeable future. On the part of the South Korea, the aftereffects of the financial crisis of 1997 are still lingering on it. The fundamentals of the North Korean economy are still not in a good condition with serious shortages in food, energy, exchange currency, etc. In conclusion, to level up the inter-Korean trade the South Korea should make efforts to recover completely from the financial crisis by eliminating the inherent structural problems in finance and industry. On the side of the North Korea, the malfunctioning economic system should be restructured to get out of its current economic crisis. But the problem the North Korea faces is that it is much less possible for the ruling class to take a new strategy of radical reform on its ill economy. It is rather probable that they would prefer a gradual reform for the economic openness. The most important thing for the South Korean government to do expand the inter-Korean trade is to take some institutional measures: to simplify the complicated bureaucratic process to deal with the economic relations with North Korea, to enlarge direct trade, and to support with various subsidies the middle-and small sized companies involved in the trade with North Korea.