Abstract
INTRODUCTION
FUNDAMENTAL MARKET DRIVERS: A QUICK REVIEW
Korea: Market Opportunities
South Korea is a major exporting industrial player in the global marketplace.
It is also an important market for foreign direct investment (FID) via
manufacturers, financial entities and other foreign interests in its
industrial, infrastructure development and consumer sectors, although overall
FID has decreased in recent years. Other market opportunities exist outside
the FID sector. The main thrust of this report is to point out selected areas
of opportunity and how corporate interests can more readily enter those market
sectors.
This introduction briefly arrays the business opportunities and market drivers
in the country' s economy.
Any realistic analysis of South Korea' s continued economic progress must take
into account four fundamental factors impacting the shape and rate of future
progress. Two have existed for some time, are critical to continued
industrial development and will become even more important in the future as
industrial and consumer growth impact more heavily, and therefore figure
prominently in the business opportunity area. Another is dangerous to the
state and its economy, seemingly imponderable, may or may not come into play,
and therefore cannot be directly used in opportunity analysis, but must be
kept in mind at all times in any prudent business risk analysis. The fourth
factor is beginning to emerge as a significant issue which is likely to
develop through necessity into a significant pressure for both energy and
water resource infrastructure change. It must be considered, at least on the
margins of our discussion. Stated succinctly, the four factors in the order
listed above are:
- Heavy dependency on imported petroleum and other hydrocarbon energy
sources for both industrial and consumer energy requirements in the face of
accelerating population and industrial growth and associated increased energy
requirements.
- Irregular water resource availability coupled with an immature water
management infrastructure, facing the same continued growth demand impact as
energy.
- Local regional as well as global political, economic and military
instability, resulting from North Korean political/military unpredictability,
coupled with Middle East unrest and possible resulting effects on oil
deliveries to South Korea
- Serious pollution of air and water resources, the certainty of problem
growth, and the probable impact of a growing requirement for stricter
pollution controls
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