South Korea and Japan reached a new level of competition last year in terms of exports, according to a report by the Korea International Trade Association on Monday. The export similarity index for the East Asian neighbors surpassed the 0.5 mark for the first time in 2013, reaching 0.501, meaning that more than half of their exports were rival products.
Competition was highest in semiconductor equipment, at 0.766; cars, at 0.707; and industrial machinery, at 0.690. Notably, competition in car parts shot up to an all-time high of 0.560. Other sectors that contributed to the countries’ ESI included steel, computer chips and plastic products.