According to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the Korean government is poised to invest 189 trillion won in further fostering its already strong IT sector in the belief that IT will be Korea’s primary growth engine in the future.
Cho Seok, D said in an interview “In the future, everything will be based on communication networks which will dramatically change people’s lifestyles, and there will be a paradigm shift in which IT and other industries will be consolidated.”
The ministry of Knowledge Economy plans to converge IT with other industries to boost development and nurture the semiconductors needed for such consolidations. It also intends to strengthen the competitiveness of Korea’s major software firms to come up with new technology. It also suggests investing in machinery and equipment for the further development of Korea’s strong sectors – the semiconductor, display and cell phone sectors.
Whenever I hear news about the Korea’s national R&D investment undertaking, I get kind of antsy about it for a number of reasons, which I’ve discussed in the previous posts.
For one thing, Korea doesn’t have a good track record of managing the national R&D programs. The same may go for other developing and developed countries alike.
I’m a little concerned with a government’s direct involvement with business development as shown in the case of the mobile phone business.
The Korean semiconductor industry has made a remarkable stride in memory chips, but it has had some fundamental problems such as lagging behind in specialty logic chips, software, and capital equipments for some time.
The idea of digital convergence has been around for some time, too.
When the Korean government made a major investment in the IT sector in the wake of the Asian financial crisis, the worldwide economic situation was quite different than the current one. Korea went through the crisis while global bubble was booming. Purchasing power in the major economies is dwindling. I’m not sure how they see IT will be the next growth engine again.
I don’t mean to undermine the importance of national innovation initiatives and IT sector in Korean economy. The wise and efficient national innovation management would be a key factor for the further economic development. Hence, careful and solid investments in the appropriate technology area with a good management competence, reflecting on what they have learned from the past, would be another matter in difficult times.
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