South Korea: Determinants of Corn Import Demand

The Korean feed grain market is almost totally dependent on imports of feed grains, chiefly corn, for feed manufacturing and industrial production of starch and high-fructose corn syrup. While the United States has historically dominated the Korean corn import market, the U.S. share of Korean corn imports dropped to less than 20 percent in 1992/93. U.S. corn is increasingly competing with competitively priced feed wheat and lower priced Chinese corn. While U.S. corn is generally preferred due to its higher yielding characteristics, its kernel uniformity, and the general reliability of the United States as a supplier, corn prices from China are consistently lower than U.S. prices and the shipping time is shorter