Bidding - the International Association of the Catalysis Societies

decades. Catalyst industry that began in 1991 enjoyed a healthy 28.6% growth per year,
and produces catalysts valued in excess of 100 million U.S. dollars, while Korean
industries import about 250 million U.S. dollars worth of catalysts, not counting the
catalysts embedded in licensed technologies.
The petrochemical industry, which began with a planned ethylene production capacity
of 100,000 metric tons per year in 1968, grew by leaps and bounds. Ethylene capacity
stands at 5 million metric tons, a 50-fold increase in the quarter century that ended in
1993, making Korea the fifth largest ethylene producer in the world. Much effort is
being expended in order to develop catalytic technologies for manufacturing
downstream chemical intermediates from the outputs of naphtha crackers.
Chemical industries account for about 20% of Korean GDP, which is the 11 th largest in
the world. The rise of chemical industries in 1960s heralded the economic development
of Korea, and the catalysis community has a vital role to play in the growing sector of
the economy. Catalytic technologies have yet to reach a mature phase in Korea, thus the
catalysis community has an increasingly vital role to play in the growing sector of the
economy. Collaborative efforts between the academic/research community and
industrial practitioners will bring about the fruition of the 2 decades of activities in the
form of a large number of indigenous catalytic technologies, both for domestic use and
export.
This brief introduction to catalysis-related activities will close with a somewhat larger
picture of Korea’s total R & D efforts. Korea has been devoting an increasing portion of
its GDP toward R & D expenditures during the past two decades. After reaching 1% of
GDP in 1982, it kept rising until it reached 2% in 1991, 2.5% in 1995, and has remained
above 2.5% ever since, which is one of the highest among the OECD member countries.
Considering that Korean economy has experienced one of the fastest growths in the
world during the past few decades, this increase in R&D outlay is significant. In terms
of the government expenditure, 5% of the national budget was earmarked for R&D in
the year 2003. R&D manpower per 1000 in the labor force is approaching 5, which is
quite close to the average for the G7 nations.
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