Korea

Country starter pack
Getting started in Korea
29
Rank out of
144 countries.
1 being the most
competitive.
17 th 23 rd 14 th
Remarkable capacity for innovation
and extensive government support
for research and development across
various industries.
26 th
1
2 3
After exiting the top 20 in 2013,
Korea (26th) dropped one more
position for competitiveness in 2014.
7 th 97 th
Korea possesses a remarkably sound
macroeconomic environment (second
only to Norway among OECD
countries).
With a strong national focus on
research and development, Korea
ranks highly on higher education and
training with one of the leading rates
of tertiary and primary education
enrolment in the world and extensive
availability of research and training
services.
The country boasts excellent
infrastructure (14th), particularly with
roads, rail, ports, telecommunications
and airports.
25 th
27 th 68 th
Relatively strong business
sophistication consisting of strong
local supplier quantity and quality, as
well as advance production processes
and good value chain breadth.
High degree of technological
readiness with Korea having some
of the world’s highest rankings for
broadband subscriptions including
fixed and mobile.
Korea is ranked 68th for intellectual
property (IP) protection with the
“first to file” regulation not ideal for
some foreign companies.
80 th
Although up one from the
previous year to 80, Korea’s financial
market development ranking is
hindered by low standings for ease
of access to loans and availability of
financial services.
91 st
The ratio of women in the labour
force compared to men is one of the
lowest in the OECD group
of countries.
The Korean public’s trust in
politicians and government officials
is not as high as some other countries
in the region. This relates to recent
public attention highlighting concerns
of transparency among various
government levels.