Asia-Pacific is the fastest growing region in the world. Accordingly, the corporate value chains’ dynamics of development and changes is very high. The most completely included countries in the East Asian value-added chains’ network are Japan, China and South Korea, as well as some of the ASEAN countries.
Most of the value-added chains is locked on China. The main purpose of companies that create or are included in the value-added chains is to obtain competitive advantages.
Currently, most of the Russian, Japanese, Chinese and South Korean companies do not consider North Korea as a factor of strengthening their competitiveness.
The inclusion of Russian companies in the East Asian value-added chains is at a minimum level. Over 70% of foreign economic relations of Russia is focused on the EU.
Currently there are several scenarios for the future development of the value-added chains in Asia Pacific: "Euphoria", "WTO 2.0" and "bowl of spaghetti". At the same time none of the scenarios considers the unification of Korea as a significant factor.
However, the unification of Korea, rather, may lead to a temporary decrease in South Korean’ competitiveness, since it requires the investment in the integration process (creation of infrastructure, training, etc.).
Moreover, if the integration of the South will take place at the expense of South Korean public investment, in the future the South Korean company will be able to use the North Korean factor to enhance their competitiveness (cheap labor, natural resources, increasing in domestic demand, etc.).
At the moment, the Russian strategy for the economic cooperation with the Unified Korea does not exist. This is confirmed by the lack of state-level documents that would contain at least some details of this cooperation, there is also no published corporate strategies of any Russian companies towards the Unified Korea.
The term "Russian economic strategy for cooperation with the Unified Korea" means the Russian economic cooperation mainly with the enterprises of North Korea since the level of development, for example, South Korean or Japanese value chains, higher than Russian and their synergy rather difficult.
Chinese corporations are building their own value chains (including within the concept of "One Belt, one Road") and at the level of development, that does not assume cooperation.
At the moment, the scale and number of Russian companies’ projects (joint value chains), which include North Korean enterprises or implemented in North Korea is too small, and may not indicate the presence of Russia's economic strategy towards the Unified Korea.
Nevertheless, currently the Russian business and scientific community is discussing a number of specific projects, that can be implemented on the territory of North Korea, and could involve North Korean companies.
In the future, these projects could become the basis of Russia's economic strategy towards the Unified Korea. However, it is important to note that the main condition for the successful implementation of such projects is creation the Unified Korea on the basis of North’s absorption by South.
In general, the above mentioned may be realized only in the presence of Russia's strategy for cooperation with the United Republic of Korea. This strategy should be based on the following principles.
1. Northern Territory is considered to be a potential part of the United Republic of Korea.
2. United Republic of Korea - one of the key elements of a common Eurasian space.
3. The United Republic of Korea - an important potential customer of Russian Natural Resources and element of the Trans-Eurasian logistics system.