On April 7th, the South Korean media “Daily Economy” published an article stating that recently, there has been a so-called “China at its peak” in the South Korean economic community. However, the Korea Development Research Institute predicts that China will emerge from the impact of the epidemic and the manufacturing sector will continue to maintain growth momentum.
In addition, some people have commented that in order for South Korea to continue to maintain its position as a manufacturing powerhouse in the future, special measures such as structural adjustment must be taken.
Recently, Chung Dae hee, Minister of Macroeconomic and Financial Policy Research at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), stated in an interview: “China’s short-term economic growth rate will be higher than that of major countries. From an external perspective, China will continue to be a country with demand for a considerable period of time in the future
China has proposed an economic growth target of around 5% for this year. This is the lowest value in 32 years since 1991 (4.5%). Minister Zheng explained that from China’s perspective, the target value is significantly low this time, but from an external perspective, the Chinese economy remains strong.
Minister Zheng commented that China has a particular advantage in the field of traditional manufacturing. The traditional manufacturing industry is mainly focused on machinery and heat treatment, and is not suitable for cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data. Minister Zheng said, “Even though China has reached its peak, in terms of traditional manufacturing, China is rapidly catching up with South Korea.” “In terms of cutting-edge manufacturing, China may have some shortcomings, but in terms of traditional manufacturing, it is not
He also said, “China is moving towards a manufacturing powerhouse, and it is important for South Korea to respond. Industrial structure adjustment is also necessary.” This means that in order to not lag behind China, which is rapidly catching up, production efficiency must be improved. Therefore, large-scale structural adjustments such as adjusting manpower or reducing production costs must be considered.
Zheng Guizhe, the director of KDI’s Economic Outlook Office, also suggested that “in the manufacturing industry, we should be prepared to compete with China.” He explained in an interview, “Although there have been many collaborations with China in the manufacturing industry before, moving towards a competitive relationship is only a matter of time