Falling competitiveness

Korea should see why it is lagging in No. 1 goods

A report has shown that Korea lags behind not just Japan but also China in the number of goods it produces that occupy the largest share in the world market. According to a survey of 74 primary products by Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun last year, seven Korean goods had the largest global market share, the same as in 2017. on the other hand, the comparable number of goods increased to 11 for Japan and 10 for China.

Korean companies barely maintained the No. 1 spot in semiconductors and related products. However, China is closely chasing in computer chips and large panel displays, and the gap between the two countries in shipbuilding has all but disappeared. China had also steadily increased its market share in solar panels and computers to take the lead by large margins.

Korea once enjoyed dominance in the home electronics field but had to hand it over to China. Few can tell for sure whether the same thing will happen in other areas soon. Samsung Electronics, which had dominated the virtual reality headset market, fell to fourth place last year, raising the danger of self-complacency.

Also noteworthy was the fact that the No. 1 makers of 10 products were replaced in just a year. In the large turbine generator market, for instance, Hitachi replaced GE to take the top post. Korea, however, failed to step out into the world markets in newly emerging areas, such as diagnostic imaging devices, cloud services and cancer treatments. It is frustrating to sit by and watch Chinese companies' rapid progress in markets that have long been dominated by U.S. makers.

As seen in the ongoing export restrictions imposed by the Japanese government against South Korea, market-dominating products and technologies have emerged as a critical factor in national power, transcending the economy to hold sway on national security.

For Korea to survive the fiercer global technological contest, it should allow free competition regardless of corporate size and create an environment favorable to developing cutting-edge products. Without doing away with time-honored regulations and vested interests as well as fundamentally restructuring the industrial ecosystem, the nation will not survive in global competition.