Seoul Lights Up for the Holiday Season - Korea.net

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President Lee Myung-bak, government officials, experts and entrepreneurs attend a mammoth meeting to announce the nation’s new economic growth engine industries at the the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Daejeon on Sept. 22 SPECIAL SERIES changes within South Korean society. Among those, education comes first. South Korean schools, colleges and universities are still very much in the grip of a traditional system which goes back to Confucian rote learning. This authoritarian pedagogy was perhaps well-geared to the first stage of South Korean industrialization when it required an obedient workforce. But in a transition toward a more hightech and service-oriented economy, South Korea needs a more initiative-based workforce and more entrepreneurship-minded individuals; this requires a fundamental shift in the education style, toward a more individualistic and less Confucian type of students-teachers relationship. A more open education would be able to retain in South Korea many of its best students who now emigrate to the United States; it would also attract students and scholars from other parts of the world, not only from the Asia Pacific region. A whiff of cosmopolitism would enhance the creativity of the Korean education and its performance. More and better educated, Koreans would produce less “irregular” workers, while most of these “irregular” workers presently suffer from a lack of proper education. Better educated Koreans will be more ready to understand the harsh process of destructive creation, which is the core of rapid economic development: adaptation through education should be the Korean answer to the challenges of globalization. This adaptation will not be a smooth nor an instantaneous process; no country so far has been able to strike an easy balance between the flexibility requirements of the global market and the collective desire for stability. Some turmoil will happen that cannot be avoided, but more open political debates, better public explanations, better education and constant negotiations should lead to more consensual solutions. To achieve such a delicate balance between competition and social stability, South Korea should not necessarily follow other models, be it Japan, the United States or Europe. There is room for creativity in a still young State: South Korean economists, state officials, union leaders, and entrepreneurs could experiment with new solutions such as a competitive welfare system, permanent training, negative income tax for the poorest, and social “flexi security” (flexibility for the employers, security for the employees) mechanisms as now practiced in Scandinavia. Beyond these still to be created public institutions, government, at the national and local levels, should focus on the quality of life in Korea. The Korean people have worked, and still work, hard; they deserve reliable health care, special attention to the old and retired, safety and a more beautiful environment. The beautification of Seoul under the leadership of former mayor and now President Lee Myungbak and his successor Oh Se-hoon has demonstrated that government officials can make a difference in the daily life of the Korean people. This is a model to be followed. Korea in Sixty Years’ Time I have no doubt about Korea’s economic or diplomatic status sixty years from now. But I wonder what Korean will mean then? All nations today are torn apart between their ancestors’ roots and fusion into a global melting pot. Most probably, the recent nationalistic outbursts among young Koreans express a disarray towards these contradictory trends. The tension between local and global will only increase as more Koreans will live abroad or be exposed to diverse cultural experiences. Moreover, more foreigners will come and live in Korea; Korea cannot escape immigration and its developing economy will need immigrant workers, at the top as well as at the bottom of the economic scale. Will this confrontation between Koreans and foreigners, abroad and at home, be smooth and easy? Will xenophobia prevail, or intermarriage? Probably, both will happen, like in the rest of the world. Koreans who always defined themselves through their bloodline and family history, will then be compelled to change their self definition: a Korean in the future could well be Korean by culture without being Korean by genetic origin. Moreover, a Korean could be Korean and something else simultaneously. This is not to be feared: we are all shifting from a world dominated by the cult of our ancestors, to a world based on shared identity. Many Koreans will remain Korean and become global citizens as well; and many global citizens could become Korean by choice. ■ Guy Sorman is a French journalist, economist, philosopher and author of twenty books on contemporary affairs, covering the five continents. He is a regular columnist for Le Figaro in France, the Wall Street Journal and City Journal in the United States, and other publications around the world. Sorman taught economics at the Paris Institute of Political Sciences from 1970 to 2000. He has held several public offices, including advisor to the prime minister of France (1995-1997) and deputy mayor of Boulonge, near Paris. He was appointed by President Lee Myung-bak as a member of the Global Advisors and Friends of Korea in June 2008. As the country’s economic growth rate slows, the government has been seeking what it calls “new growth engines.” In its search for new industries to fuel economic growth, Seoul has set up a special team of more than 360 experts from the industrial, academic and research fields led by Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) president Suh Nam-pyo. Together with the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the team worked for about six months to select new growth engine industries out of New Growth Engine Industries-1 Planting Seeds of Growth in Key Sectors BY CHOI HE-SUK KOREA HERALD STAFF WRITER more than 400 candidates. The result is 22 industries from six fields, announced on Sept. 22. The six categories are energy and environment, transportation systems, new information technology, industrial convergence, biotechnology and knowledge-based services. Under the plans the government will inject 7.9 trillion won ($5.4 billion) into these areas, hoping to persuade the private sector to foot the 91.5 trillion won that remains from the total of 99.4 trillion won investment planned for its new growth engine scheme. Although observers have commented that success will depend on whether or not the private sector spends as much as the government is hoping for, the Lee Myung-bak administration has high hopes for its ambitious plans. According to the government’s estimates, the project will raise the country’s value added production output to 253 trillion won by 2013 from this year’s 116 trillion won and increase exports from this year’s $120.8 billion to $306.9 billion by 2013 and to $795.4 billion by 2018. The government also expects 62 KOREA DECEMBER 2008 DECEMBER 2008 KOREA 63
SPECIAL SERIES 880,000 new jobs will be created over the next five years and 2.26 million jobs made available over the next 10 years as a result of the projects. Energy and Environment The Lee Myung-bak government has placed great emphasis on promoting “green growth,” and such intentions can also be seen through the new growth engine scheme. Of the 22 new growth engine industries, six are in the field of energy and environment, five of which are concerned with alternative or renewable energy sources. The six industries singled out are clean coal energy, maritime bio fuels, solar cells, carbon dioxide capture and recycling, fuel cell power generation systems and nuclear power facilities. The total investment required in these areas is estimated at 30.47 trillion won over the next five years. For clean coal energy, converting low-grade coal to synthetic petroleum using eco-friendly methods, the government hopes to induce investments worth 22 trillion won over the next five years. According to the government’s projections, the clean coal energy industry will generate 150,000 new jobs and produce 80 million barrels of synthetic petroleum on an annual basis - or about 8 percent of Korea’s annual petroleum consumption by 2018. Maritime bio fuels - referring to petroleum alternatives produced from aquatic plants and carbon dioxide capture and recycling techniques - use carbon dioxide produced at highemission facilities such as power plants as gas in the production of other chemicals. Overall, the government expects the five alternative energy projects to reduce the country’s petroleum dependency by 13.4 percentage points from last year’s 43.3 percent by 2018. Transportation Systems The transportation system category consists of two subcategories - environmentally friendly automotive technology and technologies related to ships and maritime facilities. In the case of environmentally friendly automotive technologies, the government plans to direct 1.3 trillion won over the next five years with the aim of developing the local industry into one of the world’s top four nations in terms of related technologies. Although local carmakers have already made significant headway without much help from the government, the inclusion of the subject in the new growth engine plans have been welcomed by the industry. Hyundai Kia Automotive Group already has a number of hydrogen fuel cell driven vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles around the world and the company is scheduled to begin commercial production of the liquefied petroleum gas-electric hybrid version of the compact sedan Avante next year. The auto giant has also succeeded in locally developing much of the technologies used in hybrid vehicles allowing it to significantly reduce production costs. “There has been no change in policies concerning environmental car technologies as of yet and no support - other than what had already been in place - has materialized,” said an auto industry official, adding that policy changes are likely to be implemented within the next couple of years. “But the process of fine tuning the policies takes time and many in the industry consider it highly significant that the president is personally involving himself in drawing up such plans.” For plans concerning ships and maritime facilities, the government estimates that 733 billion won needs to be injected by 2013. In addition to the conventional ideas such as developing more advanced ships, the category includes innovative ideas such as mobile harbors that move out to sea for larger ships that require deeper waters, a prototype of which will be introduced at the Yeosu Expo 2012. New Information Technology Under the new information technology category, the government has included semiconductors, displays, nextgeneration mobile telecommunications and LED lighting as future growth engines. The fifth and final subcategory that comes under new information technology is RFID and USN. RFID, short for radio frequency identification, is a method of identification using RFID tags, which is currently being used in a wide range of areas including product tracking, transportation payments and in passports. USN or ubiquitous sensor networks refer to the ubiquitous use of RFID tags for purposes ranging from monitoring pollution and environmental conditions to military applications. Over the next five years, the government estimates that 28.3 trillion won needs to be injected into these areas. Of the total, 13.5 trillion won will be directed towards semiconductor-related areas with the emphasis on system semiconductors, the market for which is about four times larger than that for memory chips. Industrial Convergence The industrial convergence category concerns areas that require two or more industries to converge. The category consists of four industries: robotics, new materials and nano-convergence, IT-based convergence, and broadcasting-telecommunication convergent media. The total investment estimated for the category is 34.5 trillion won. For robotics, the government hopes to raise the local industry to one of the top three globally by 2018 to capitalize on a world-wide market expected to grow to $420 billion by 2020. For the new materials and nanoconvergence category, Seoul has penciled in 12.6 trillion won for the next five years in the hopes that the country will grow to be one of the world’s top four nations in terms of materials technology and solve the country’s trade deficit problem by 2018. IT-based convergence refers to the addition of information technology to telecommunications to develop IT applicable to automotive, shipbuilding and other key industries. For the broadcasting-telecommunication convergent media, which includes internet protocol television and mobile broadcasting services, 18.7 trillion won is estimated to be required in order to meet the target of developing a world class industry by 2018. In the biotechnology sector - which according to the plans will receive a 900 billion won investment over the next five years - focus will be placed on developing new medicines from biological sources and nurturing medical equipment technologies, much of which Korea still imports. According to the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, of the more than 2,300 medical devices costing more than 100 million won that were in use at university hospitals in 2005, less than 4 percent was produced by local firms. In addition, the Korea Health Industry Development Institute’s data showed that last year the country imported $2.2 billion worth of medical equipment, while exports came in at only $1 billion. The final category is knowledgebased services. It consists of four different industries: software, design, healthcare and cultural contents business. The government is aiming for 6.6 trillion won in investments by 2013. ■ 64 KOREA DECEMBER 2008 DECEMBER 2008 KOREA 65
Page 3 and 4: Opening a communicative space betwe
Page 5 and 6: COVER The Experience of Foreign Stu
Page 7 and 8: COVER The Korea Herald U.S. Enginee
Page 9 and 10: DIPLOMACY Yonhap “Sets of bilater
Page 11 and 12: GLOBAL KOREA Yonhap Ramsar Changwon
Page 13 and 14: GLOBAL KOREA World Ocean Forum 2008
Page 15 and 16: CULTURE Emography on a closet Calli
Page 17 and 18: CULTURE Royal Protocols of the Jose
Page 19 and 20: CULTURE Hanbok Artist Makes Style S
Page 21 and 22: PEOPLE Moon Young Doo Credia Japane
Page 23 and 24: ART A scene from “A Ballerina Who
Page 25 and 26: TRAVEL Inje Ice Fish Festival Night
Page 27 and 28: EVENTS Daegu Photo Biennale 2008 1
Page 29 and 30: BOOKS Goguryeo: In Search of Its Cu
Page 31: SPECIAL SERIES they are perceived a

Seoul Lights Up for the Holiday Season - Korea.net

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