South Korea's exports will likely face hard landing due to Europe's debt crisis as the region's economic slowdown will reduce overseas demand for locally-made products both in direct and indirect ways, a local think tank said Thursday.

"South Korea needs to brace for the possible hard landing of its exports caused by economic shocks from Europe. The exports are highly likely to face hard landing," Ju won, a senior research fellow at Hyundai Research Institute (HRI) in Seoul, said in a report.

The researcher noted that the persistent crisis in Europe will trigger credit crunch in the European banking system that will lead to reduction in overall global trade, saying that South Korea' s exports will possibly face hard landing due to weaker exports to Europe amid slowing shipments to China, South Korea's largest trading partner.

The European Union (EU) is one of South Korea's biggest trading partners along with China and the United States. The country's exports to the EU reached 55.73 billion U.S. dollar in 2011. The indirect exports, including products exported to the EU by way of other major nations such as China, the U.S and Japan, amounted to 13.57 billion dollars last year.

In the assumption that Europe's overall imports reduce 20 percent as seen in 2009, South Korea's exports to the EU would decline by 11.15 billion dollars for direct exports and by 2.71 billion dollars for indirect exports respectively, according to the report.

The 30 percent drop in Europe's imports would decrease South Korea's direct exports by 16.72 billion dollars and the indirect exports by 4.07 billion dollars each, the report showed.

The researcher noted that the country's shipbuilding, information technology (IT) and auto industries had a relatively high dependence on the EU region in terms of exports, recommending that the government needed to take countermeasures against the possible exports hard landing such as those for boosting domestic demand and for diversifying export destinations.