SEOUL, KOREA — Recent reports in the foreign press have taken a closer look at Korea’s past development and its current progress as a leader in technological innovation and business.
The June 24 edition of Spain’s largest daily newspaper El Pais included a special two-page spread on Korea’s importance as a launch site for future technologies and trends.
“Scenes from the Seoul Metro give us a preview into our future,” wrote Juan Pedro Velazquez-Gaztelu, business editor for El Pais, who described a typical morning on Seoul’s subway as one in which “millions of commuters travel through the city while accessing the Internet on their smartphones and tablet PCs via an extensive high-speed wi-fi network.”
Explaining that Korea boasts one of the world’s most comprehensive wireless networks, Velazquez-Gaztelu offered the assessment that the newest information technologies and telecommunications services have been incorporated into the daily lives of Koreans with a level of excitement and ease that is hard to find elsewhere in the world. A nationwide 4G wireless infrastructure currently provides high-speed Internet access to over 90% of the population.
With regards to Korea’s economic growth, the article identified a key factor in the unprecedented pace of development as the transition from a protectionist trade policy to a more open policy following the 1997 financial crisis. The article went on to cite Korea’s numerous free trade agreements with the European Union, the United States, ASEAN member states, and several Latin American countries, among others, as the driving force behind Korea’s growing economic territory, the third largest in the world as of May 2012.
“Our goal is to establish Korea as a global platform for business and free trade,” said Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) President Oh Young-ho, who was quoted in the article.
Several days later, a two-page spread published in Germany’s most widely read national weekly newspaper Die Zeit in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Korea’s June Democracy Movement touched on similar themes.
Featuring views of the Seoul cityscape and the Hyundai Motor manufacturing plant in Ulsan as well as statistics tracking Korea’s transformation over the past 25 years, the article identified the country’s unparalleled economic growth as well as its progress toward democracy as the key elements of its now widely acclaimed success story.
“Now beyond the ‘developing’ stage, Korea is emerging as a country with remarkable creativity as well as a strong sense of social responsibility,” wrote Christian Tenbrock, senior editor for Die Zeit’s economics section. Presenting this trajectory as Korea’s new development model, Tenbrock attributed part of the success of the country’s continuing growth to the Korean people’s widely held enthusiasm for education.
Source: Korea.net
