Analyzing the market size and the economic effects of the oceans and fisheries industry

Establishing the strategic plans to foster the oceans and fisheries (O&F) industry as an engine for national sustainable economic growth has become an important task for developing countries as well as developed countries. The first step to do so is to identify O&F industry and analyze its economic effects. Therefore, the prime purposes of the paper are two-fold. The first is to identify O&F industry and estimate its market size using 2012 Input-Output (I-O) table published by the Bank of Korea. The second purpose is to obtain some quantitative information on production-inducing effect, value-added creation effect, and employment-inducing effect of the O&F industry. To this end, we apply an IO analysis using exogenous specification of the O&F industry. The results show that the O&F industry covers 4.1% and 3.0% of national output and gross domestic product, respectively. Moreover, we found that 1.0 won of production or investment in the O&F industry induces 1.7363 won of production and 0.4759 won of value-added in the national economy. One billion won of production or investment in the O&F industry touches off7.5569 persons of employment. This information can be utilized in the O&F industry-related policy-making.