Blue Horizon of Digital Hallyu VI - Digital Network Knowledge Country
Blue Horizon of Digital Hallyu VI - Digital Network Knowledge Country
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  • 승인 2007.06.12 10:48
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New fights among superpowers have already begun to secure Central Asia, which is newly emerging as a resource rich region.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Kazakhstan on August 28 last year, shortly before his retirement. It was the first visit to the country by a Japanese prime minister. What made the Japanese leader visit Kazakhstan The right answer is uranium.

Kazakhstan is the world's third biggest producer of uranium with about 30 percent of the total uranium reserves and the seventh largest producer of oil at 100 billion barrels a year. This fact attracts a number of leaders of the world to Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan.

Faced with an era of high oil prices, nuclear power generation is stealing the spotlight from the world again as alternative energy. Many advanced countries such as China, Russia and Japan plan to increase the number of nuclear power plants in several years.

For instance, China plans to additionally build 30 nuclear power plants by 2020, India 17 plants by 2012, and Russia 20 plants by 2020. Besides that Germany, France, Italy and Finland faced an energy crisis owing to Russia's stoppage of gas supply early last year. Because of this they are all making a strong push for construction of additional nuclear power plants.

Under this situation, the price of uranium jumped by 300 percent over recent years.

Delivering the 2006 State of the Union address, President George Bush said that the United States is addicted to oil and he planned to reduce US dependency ratio on Middle East-produced oil by more than 75 percent by 2025. To reduce the dependency ratio, the US should raise the dependency ratio on nuclear power plants and diversify oil import sources.

Like this, it is very clear that an era of fossil fuel being drained will make new climate in relations of international dynamics.

Central Asia is a battlefield without gunshots. The competition of superpowers to secure Central Asia will be fiercer than ever before. In addition to its rich energy and resources, Central Asia is a wide land of about 4 million square kilometers, about 18 times that of the Korean Peninsula.

Accordingly, Korea needs to make Central Asia, including Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, a new Blue Ocean by creating the feeling of solidarity.

From Silk Road to digital road

Fortunately, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are now busy building information infrastructure.

Kazakhstan has been constructing an optical fiber state information expressway under its three-year plan to modernize communication networks since 2004. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan plans to build networks linking all areas of the country under its ambitious plan to foster the information and communication industry from 2002 to 2010 in an effort to revive its past glory of the Silk Road as a hub connecting Europe and Asia.

The Korean government extended 16.3 billion won (US$17.6 million) in EDCF loans to Kazakhstan for its informatization project. Since 1998, IT cooperation between Korea and Kazakhstan and Korean IT companies' advancement into Kazakhstan has begun.

In particular, Korea's WiBro, which combined Internet and mobile communication, is the most suitable technology for Kazakhstan, which has a population of 15 million and owns land equivalent to 27 times the size of Korea.

Uzbekistan also recognizes Korea as its biggest partner for economic development projects, including natural resources. Korea is the second largest trading country for Uzbekistan, following Russia. Moreover, Uzbekistan has been sticking to its position to exclude Western companies from its resources development projects as much as possible. It is because Uzbekistan hopes to receive Korea's know-how in economic development.

Conclusion

The Silk Road of today calls for new attention. The Silk Road links Busan, Mongolia, Moscow and Dubai in United Arab Emirates. It is a giant economic bloc surpassing the European Union (EU) or North America.

The Central Asian region into which Silk Road penetrates is a new Blue Ocean. In other words, Korea's WiBro and digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) could be called Digital Money.

Mongolia is a good example. A communication network is very important for Mongolia as its land is 7.4 times the size of the Korean Peninsula and 30 percent of its 2.8 million people live in its capital Ulaanbaatar. The remaining people are scattered across the country.

It is a very difficult thing for Mongolia to connect such wide land with wire communication networks. Even if it is connected with mobile communication, the information gap will still remain as the country's major problem to solve owing to difficulties in access and use of Internet.

However, Korea's WiBro can solve the Mongolia's information gap easily as WiBro enables use of Internet in almost all regions with setup of relay centers. WiBro was adopted as an international standard at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) at the end of last year.

The dream of most people in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa is to drive Hyundai Motor cars, call with Samsung mobile phones and use LG refrigerators and air conditioners. Likewise, commercialization of WiBro and DMB will be the dream of people in the world in the near future.

Now, Korea is facing a good chance as it has created a leading digital technology that could create global demands. Among OECD countries, South Korea ranked first in terms of the contribution ratio of IT to exports. The nation also secures the world's top position in terms of the IT contribution to domestic economic growth.

Korea's total exports rose by 119 percent from US$129.7 billion in 1995 to US$284.4 billion in 2005. In the meantime, the nation's IT exports skyrocketed from US$38.4 billion in 1996 to more than US$100 billion. The portion of IT industry to total exports also rose by 6.3 percentage points from 29.6 percent in 1995 to 35.9 percent in 2005.

The trade balance of the IT industry expanded from US$15.2 billion in 1995 to US$48.4 billion in 2005, playing a great role in converting the trade balance of the overall industry into a surplus.

IT exports are also predicted to have surpassed US$113 billion in 2006, exceeding the earlier prediction of US$112.4 billion.

These records are very valuable as they were achieved despite such difficult conditions as the won's appreciation against the US dollar, high oil prices and a fall in unit prices of export items following intensified global competition.

However, it is difficult to predict whether or not IT exports will continue an upward trend in the future. Korea's persistent IT growth could be possible only when Korea leads a new change of paradigm based on the present IT technology power that led the world's IT flow in the past 10 years.

At the center of the change of paradigm is Korea's conversion into a digital network knowledge nation.

Now we should make all-out efforts to let Korea's post horse armed with advanced digital networks dominate all over the world.


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