The New South Korea

[kit]

https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/content ... seq=409085

30 years ago, Japan was like a high wall that South Korea couldn’t jump over easily. But how has Korea been able to outpace its neighbor in so many areas? Here is Lee In-chul, director of the Real Good Economic Institute to explain.



In the 1990s, three major credit rating agencies such as Standards & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings assigned Japan the highest rating. In 1990, S&P’s rated South Korea at A+, four notches below Japan’s AAA. But this year, Korea’s credit rating by S&P is AA, two levels higher than Japan’s A+.



In terms of per-capita GDP based on purchasing power parity, South Korea has surpassed Japan since 2018 when the former recorded 43,001 US dollars and the latter, 42,725 dollars.



It turns out that South Korea has also outstripped Japan its manufacturing competitiveness, a leading industry for both economies. The Competitive Industrial Performance index of the U.N. Industrial Development Organization shows that South Korea and Japan came in 17th and second, respectively, in 1990, but the ranking was overturned in 2018, when they placed third and fifth, respectively.

[kit]

https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/02/ ... -exporters

Last month Mr Moon returned from a trip to the Middle East with a $3.5bn contract to sell a home-grown missile system to the United Arab Emirates (uae), the biggest deal in the history of South Korea’s defence industry.

[m_saini]

Good achievements but what's the point of making an exclusive new thread for South Koreans? Wouldn't "Global Economy" be a better place for this?

[kit]

I think there is a learning point here for India, understanding the Korean trade policies and how they managed to emulate and surpass the Japanese is interesting and it did not take them long to get there. Also, to prove that steady economic reforms with a vision gets you there. How did they recover from the Asian tiger crash and build up?

How would SoKo build on its economic might is another question that needs to be followed up as it rises from NoKo s shadows

How and what are its political ambitions? It is intent on building up its military capacity ostensibly to contain NoKo but would it settle there? What are the implications?

Given its ties to China., is it a friend or fence sitter?

Given that its economy is complimentary to India's what is the scope for FTA
https://aric.adb.org/fta/india-korea-co ... -agreement

All these questions have broader ramifications in the coming years as an increasingly belligerent China seek to expand territorially

[m_saini]

How did they recover from the Asian tiger crash and build up?

The 1997-98 Korean Financial Crisis: Causes, Policy Response, and Lessons

...foreign creditors further accelerated the withdrawal of their funds from Korea, pushing the country to the verge of a sovereign default in less than two weeks after the initial agreement was signed. Korea was able to avoid this worst possible situation only with the help of the United States.

On December 19, at the Korean government’s request, the U.S. government not only persuaded the IMF to quickly enter into a new round of negotiations with the Korean government for a further frontloading of bailout money, it also exerted its influence on the financial institutions of G-7 countries to roll over their short-term credits to Korea for one month. In return for this favor, they were promised to have an opportunity to reach an agreement with the Korean government in restructuring their outstanding short-term loans to Korea...

It helps being unkill's plaything

Also the from the article, crisis was essentially started by unkill so there's that as well.

[S_Madhukar]

It's the most Americanised and Xtian country in Asia (may be apart from Phillipines) ... that's a start ... but they met their literacy goals in the 60s and were under dictatorship until 80s... my point being they have a completely different trajectory and their experience with Americans has been primarily as a benefactor and benign.
We are the only pumpkins who never meet most of our targets planned or unplanned so we should not be comparing with SoKo. They will have their challenges if they merge with NoKo sometime this century and with their falling birthrates will be vying with Japan for the cream of immigrants globally ... K-pop and K-drama are part of that outreach ... watch some of their old movies and it showcases a certain maturity that comes with war (whereas ours have always been either commie dystopia or some childish romances) .. we are already loosing some Indians to them so watch the space...
They easily adapt to a top down hierarchy thanks to Confucianism and military service but are creative as well thanks to Western exposure... in short they are everything we can be but I guess we have our plates full... but with a large country and resources we can make comebacks and SoKo when given a chance last century made theirs after being China and Japan's minions for a while... today along with economic power they are cultivating soft+hard power.
Having said that they are very good at marketing themselves and I confess I am a fan of some of the K stuff always regretting that we could have done that ...but with rabid capitalism they have a pretty screwed up society that oscillates between the medieval and modernity something I hope we can avoid.
Btw they had a F*** Japan mentality so that helped them societally, what is our burning desire going to be?

[KL Dubey]

IBTL...!!!