Korea is well-known for its successful achievement of rapid economic development. During a four to five decade gap, Korea rose from one of the world's poorest nations to become one of the largest economies in the global sector. Korea's GNI per capita stood at a mere US$87 in 1962, which was equivalent to that of Ghana at that time. The figure surged to more than US$10,000 in 1995 and vaulted above US$20,000 in 2007.
The development of the IT sector has been one of the core drivers of Korea's exceptional growth. Korea has now become the one of the world's IT main superpowers. In 2010, Korea ranked top in a study on the Super High-Speed Internet Quality published by the University of Oxford, in ICT National Competitiveness Assessment for the White Paper 2010 Information and Communications released by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, and in the United Nation's e-government survey.
Among others, effective government interventions and close relations between public and private sectors have been cited as the key success factors of the Korean IT industry. Korea's IT-related polices have spanned three areas: building information infrastructure; promoting industrial activities, including capacity building of the ICT industry; and laying grounds for fair competition.
The government took the initiative by providing seed money for infrastructure development. The government's role was to provide future vision and to increase public awareness of digital economy. Under strong government leadership, e-Government created a healthy demand for ICT products and services. The government also allocated a substantial portion of resources to education to address the digital divide problem.
Korea's ICT Industrial Policy has been focused on R&D and HRD. The government's role in R&D has been generally small compared to other areas. In the case of CDMA, however, the government played a crucial role in coordinating efforts and tasks to be carried out in R&D for the private and public sector. A good case in point is the various supporting measures implemented for R&D at SMEs. Fostering ICT professionals that meet rapidly changing ICT skill requirements has always been the top priority and this has significantly enhanced the competitiveness of the Korean IT industry.
Korea was also careful and carried out various efforts to reach global standards in privatization, market liberalization, and competition policy. In particular, Korea's vision of creating a virtuous cycle with facility-based competition resulted in a successful development of the service sector as it generated a greater demand for high-end equipment and terminals, further shoring up the manufacturing sector. This virtuous cycle kept on improving with the underlying pro-competitive regulatory measures.
Since its foundation in 1985, the Korea Information Society Development Institute, as a government-affiliated research institute, has contributed to the government's policy making process by providing cutting-edge IT policy research for the past 25 years.
In the late 1980s, KISDI recommended the introduction of competition in the telecom service market. After the recommendation was eventually accepted by the government and implemented, consumers were greatly benefited and the industry became highly motivated to sharpen its competitive edge. During the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, KISDI came up with diverse policy recommendations to nurture venture businesses including establishing venture capital funds and promoting business-academia cooperation. KISDI actively supported the government in developing the IT industry into an export-leading business. These efforts were behind the nation's subsequent economic growth where the export of cutting-edge IT devices such as semiconductors, mobile phones, and LCD played a major role. Creating a level-playing field was an important element in boosting the competitiveness of the telecommunication industry. KISDI supported diverse policies for ensuring fair competition in the mobile telecom market, licensing new operators, expanding foreign ownership in the facility-based telecom sector, and carrying out quality assessment of telecom services. Since 2001, KISDI has provided policy consultation to government officials, researchers and entrepreneurs of 80 different countries in the areas of telecommunications and IT in collaboration with the World Bank.
KISDI takes great pride in having offered vital information on policy alternatives and made policy recommendations to government officials and industry leaders in Korea and abroad. Aiming to become a pioneer in the era of broadcasting and telecommunications convergence and to contribute to the rapidly approaching digital economy, KISDI has recently expanded its research focus to include broadcasting as well. We will continue to work domestically and internationally to devise a more extensive and better research-based broadcasting system as well as communication and IT policies in the future. The best practices of Korean IT policy making will shed invaluable light on policy making for the future of Korea as an IT superpower.
