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# 30 September, 2004
# Korea Times
# By Park Chung-a



KITA Report Shows Seoul World's No. 1 IT Power


Korea’s rate of graduates that received university degrees or higher in science and engineering, shipbuilding volume and sales of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips rank as the highest in the world.

The supply of high-speed Internet, textiles exports and the production of thin-film transistor liquid crystal displays and code division multiple access products are also among the 11 areas in which Korea topped the global market.

Korea’s performance in some other areas, however, is less impressive such as 35th place in indexes for transparency and corruption, 34th place in quality of life and 6th place in rate of inflation.

The statistics are from the report on Korea’s 207 various indexes in economy, trade and society consolidated by the Korea International Trade Association based on latest updates of figures from the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.

According to the report, Korea’s number of graduates who received higher education in science and engineering placed the highest in the world, accounting for 41 percent, much higher than Japan with 29.2 percent and the United States with 18 percent.

The percentage of female lawmakers accounted for 13 percent, 77th in the world, far lower than Rwanda with 48.8 percent and Sweden with 45.3 percent, which placed first and second respectively. However, this is huge progress considering that Korea was in 101st place with 5.5 percent during the 16th National Assembly.

As for major industries, Korea ranked 3rd in cell phone sales, 6th in car production, 12th in the number of cars, 4th in refrigerator production, 5th in washing machine output and 16th in beer production.

Korea demonstrated its strength in the information technology industry. The number of high-speed Internet subscribers ranked 1st with 21.3 people out of 100, followed by Hong Kong with 14.6 people in 2nd place and Canada with 11.5 persons in 3rd. The number of Internet users marked 2nd, following Iceland, while the number of mobile phone subscribers marked 29th.

The average life span was 74 years in 54th place. As for others, Korea ranked 11th in nominal GDP, 12th in trade volume, 40th in export volume per capita, 17th in service exports, 4th in foreign exchange reserve and 3rd in the number of cases charged with dumping. The number of products in Korea that boast the highest market share in the world market recorded 77 for 13th place.

As for education and research and development, the spending on education per student recorded 23rd. Testifying to Korea’s intense passion for education, the percentage of spending on education organizations out of the GDP marked 5th. Investment volume on R&D was 7th, the number of research papers on scientific technology 15th and the number of announced research papers per 10,000 people 29th in the world.

While the number of students who study in the U.S ranked 3rd followed by China, TOEFL notes was ranked at only 109th among 153 comparable countries.

Among 500 companies selected by Fortune magazine, 11 Korean companies were listed and only Samsung was on the list of 100 global brands.



michelle@koreatimes.co.kr