It is reported that 56% of domestic exporters have gone through increase in logistics cost in the first half of this year.

According to KORCHAM(Korea Chamber of Commerce)'s recent survey of the current status of traders' logistics, 55.7% of exporters answered 'Increased' to the question asking the change of outbound logistics cost during the first half this year compared with last year. The increase percent has turned out to be 16.3% on average. The leading cause was 'rising oil price'(71.4%). Then it was followed by 'rise in incidental expenses such as transportation and forwarding charge'(12.5%), 'change in weight and volume of cargo resulted from change of its characters'(5.4%), 'traffic congestion'(3.6%) and 'rise in labor costs'(1.8%).

"International oil price for Dubai crude oil surged by over 9% from the first half last year. Forwarding charge has been raised to 35,000 Won per shipment from 25,000 and container haulage cost also increased by more than 9%. All these factors have aggravated logistics cost of exporters." said a staff at KORCHAM.

Regarding logistics cost that exporters felt necessary to adjust, 'air freight'(44.4%) was most widely identified and then 'sea freight'(43.1%), 'forwarding charge'(33.2%), 'customs clearance related expenses(18.8%), 'container haulage cost'(17.4%), 'port stevedoring charges'(14.5%) and 'warehousing cost'(11.8%).

In terms of countries that have tricky administrative regulations in outbound logistics, the US was ranked 1st(18.2%) and then South Eastern Asia(17.2%), China(15.2%), Japan(12.1%), Europe(9.6%), the Middle East(8.1%), Latin America(7.1%) and India(6.6%).

92.1% of domestic exporters are found to entrust their export services to freight forwarders. Self fulfillment or entrusting to their subsidiary was only 6.2% and 1.7% each.

As for difficulties related with outbound logistics, respondents answered 'high air/sea freight and its volatility'(51.8%), 'delay of customs clearance in imported countries'(45.8%), 'difficulty in arranging trucking services'(31.9%), 'traffic congestion'(28.6%), 'unbalanced information system between exporters and importers'(8.6%) and 'inefficiency in port and airport facilities'(8.0%).

"High oil price and rise in incidental expenses have much affected increase in logistics cost of exporters. Further, complicated customs clearance procedures, difficult trucking service arrangement and delay of cargo transport due to congestion have worsened the situation. The government will have to do something about logistics information network linking empty trucks with cargoes in real time so that it can help to mitigate road congestions." commented a member of KORCHAM.