Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Korea's digital export decline

An article in the Korea Joongang Daily underscores the extent and nature of Korea's dependence on the manufacture and export of digital technologies.  The headline is "Export decline picks up speed in January."  As shown by the accompanying graphic (click for a full size version), the leading exports responsible for this overall decline are all digital (ICT sector) manufactured products.  (NOTE:  there is a typo in the black and white bar chart included in the graphic-- the bar for "January 2018" actually represents data for January 2019.  Also, in the bottom part of the graphic, red bars under the heading "Export growth of 13 major products" represent positive growth while the blue bars show declining growth.) However, the article strongly supports the main point of this post, that Korea's export-led economy, while ICT-driven, is heavily (perhaps too heavily) dependent on manufactured products rather than software and services.

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