중국시장의 유통 장벽과 한국기업의 진출방안

Abstract

Despite the attractions of 1.21 billion population, rising purchasing power, and the increasing marketization of the economy, the Chinese consumer goods market suffers from various undesirable structural features. Diverse, bureaucratic, and fragmentary nature of the market constitutes a natural barrier to the entry into the China's domestic market. Chinese government's policy that restricts the free entry of foreign firms into industries such as passenger cars, petrochemical, telecommunications, and distribution is an additional institutional barrier to the entry into the Chinese domestic market. However, a more formidable barrier from the point of view of foreign firms is distribution barriers characterized by inter-regional trade barriers, dissimilar distribution systems, and the concomitant immense costs of sales promotion and management. Foreign firms may attempt to overcome those barriers by lobbying, implementing market segmentation strategy, networking through holding companies, and joint venturing, but with only limited success. Only new, possible alternative to these means is the formation of strategic alliance(SA) among foreign firms that share the common goals of penetration China's submarkets. The incentives for SA include: mutual learning of experience and knowledge of local market, reduction of market penetration costs, joint strategic deterrence efforts against the entry of a third new entrant, joint action against the discriminatory policy measures taken by the Chinese government. However, China's intransparent, bureaucratic business environment, combined with the lack of the rule of law, is considered to be the main obstacle to forming the stable and trustworthy alliance relationship between partners.