Trade

Korea is an understated country. Maybe that is the reason why one of Asia's most active research and development clusters nestled away in Daedeok Valley has not received the attention internationally of a Silicon Valley.

Ericsson, Sweden's world-leading supplier in telecommunications, will make inroads into Korea's fourth-generation cellular wireless (4G) market based on a deal with KT. This will likely spark competition among telecommunications equipment suppliers to grab a larger share in the country's 4G market, and prompt service providers to introduce a 4G system.

The outcome of an analysis shows that Korea's three major IT export items - semiconductors, LCDs and mobile phones - will keep dominating the global market for at least six months. This analysis was released on Sept. 16 as the result of a survey of 92 economic analysts by the Federation of Korean Industries, an association of large conglomerates.

At the close of the International Conference of Science Parks 2009 in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, an event bringing together leaders in technology from around the world, the team from Korea's famed Daedeok Innopolis research cluster ascended the stage with a banner proclaiming that they will host the 2010 conference. Suddenly Daedeok Innopolis' CEO Kang Gyedu pointed to a tall bearded man from the Middle East, exclaiming: "Come on up. You are Korean too!"

Booster I, Sharp Electronics shakes hands with BLU

BLU, an LCD component manufacturer, will supply its products to Japanesebased Sharp Electronics. It is very meaningful for the small-sized company in that it gets credit from Sharp which demands high-end quality components for their products when it imports materials and components from outside Japan.

The trade volume of South Korea exceeded 700 billion dollars on December 12, 2007. This meansthat South Korea is now the 11th largest country in trade volume among more than 220 exporting countries around the world. Considering that South Korea was rebuilt out of the ashes of the Korean War, which ended in 1953, it is a miracle that the war-torn country has come so far so fast. 

Silent Valley, Kathakali, palm-fringed beaches, swaying coconut palms, blue lazy lagoons, backwaters, snake-boat races... This is Kerala.

A long strip of enchanting land tucked away in the southwest corner of India. The tall and exotic coconut palm dominates Kerala's landscape, and also its economy. It is said that the land derived its name from Keram - the coconut palm.

"We successfully hosted the 10th Conference of the Contracting Parties to the Convention on Wetlands in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam-do during October 28 to November 4.