South Korea and India contracted Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which has similar traits with FTA in January 2010. In fact, India is one of the countries of BRICS which is composed of the first alphabets of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that are regarded as today’s new leading economic countries. Therefore, it is remarkable for South Korea to contract FTA with India sooner than other competitive countries of the world.
Most researches show broad explanation of FTA, from the importance of the negotiation stage between South Korea and India for FTA to the expected result in terms of major industries. The main argument is that FTA between South Korea and India will bring positive effects such as higher productivity, direct investment, and employment. Researchers mainly argue regarding the reduction of tax on principal exports and expansion of export.
Even though the port plays one of the most important roles in the international trade field, only few researches exist to prove the influences of FTA on the transport maritime volume and port volume. Despite of the fact that the quantity of goods transported is a great indicator of composing the group of ships which can lead to an expansion of port infrastructure, route, ship, and processing abilities, previous researches have been conducted based on only the amount of money. Even though it is essential to understand the expected economic effects that FTA will bring in the future, it is more important to analyze the current influences of FTA that have been contracted already with the existing experiment data.
In conclusion, this paper will analyze how FTA affects the volume of transported goods in South Korea with the example of FTA between South Korea and India, providing a network model based on the existing experiment data.