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The Heavy-Chemical Industry Drive (usually shortened to "HCI") was an economic development plan enacted in the 1970s under the regime of South Korean dictator Park Chung Hee.
During the 1960s, the Republic of Korea had experienced rapid economic growth following the assumption of power by General Park. The dirigisme policies instated by Park—nationalization of the country's banking system, and directing cheap credit to the export sector—had produced rapid development in the textiles and apparel industries. By the time of the Yusin Constitution of 1972, South Korea had gone from one of the world's poorest nations to the middle rank of countries. However, the country lacked any sort of heavy industry, and was dependent upon the United States for many raw materials and capital goods during the early years.
The Korean DMZ Conflict (1966-1969) put a scare in the ROK's leadership. As the Vietnam War ground on, Park and his lieutenants faced the grim possibility that the United States might significantly reduce its military presence on the Korean Peninsula, in order to concentrate resources on the conflict in Indochina while maintaining military strength in Europe. On the other side of the DMZ, North Korea had amassed an enormous army, and an industrial establishment almost wholly devoted to the supply of its armed forces. Fearing for the ROK's military security, Park set out to build an industrial infrastructure that could support a modern military.
Park decided to channel the economic development capabilities of the state into the development of several key industries: steel, petrochemicals, automobiles, machine tools, shipbuilding, and electronics. This was over the objections of many contemporary observers, including many economists within and outside South Korea - those opposed claimed the country's economy and institutions were putatively not insufficiently advanced to handle the comprehensive industrial economy. In continuation of previous policies, South Korean banks extended virtually interest-free loans to firms engaged in sectors (q.v.). The country's import-export sector, which had previously been dominated by Japanese firms, was instead placed in the hands of export companies controlled by the chaebol individual or family-based conglomerates that had begun to dominate the economy in the 1960s.
Indeed, the chaebol were the key actors in this new economic initiative, which Park dubbed the "Heavy-Chemical Industry Drive". Being already the country's largest firms, they were decided best positioned to undertake the massive capital investment necessary to establish a heavy industrial sector (Park was uninterested in breaking up their power or putting their resources under a different form of control). Park's economic development ministers further strengthened the position of the chaebol by granting them large-scale credit under favourable conditions.
By the end of the 1970s, wildcat strikes and student demonstrations had become increasingly frequent. Park remained committed to his economic vision and contemptuous of calls for democratization and distributional equity. This, however, cost him his life: after ordering the violent suppression of a demonstration in October 1979, he was instead assassinated by the director of the KCIA.
Effects of HCI maintained public attention with incidents such as Onsan illness, an effect of the industrial push in the late 1970s which led to cases of environmental poisoning and gave rise to a grass roots environmental movement. [1]
The economy of Honduras is based mostly on agriculture, which accounts for 14% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013. The country's leading export is coffee (US$340 million), which accounted for 22% of the total Honduran export revenues. Bananas, formerly the country's second-largest export until being virtually wiped out by 1998's Hurricane Mitch, recovered in 2000 to 57% of pre-Mitch levels. Cultivated shrimp is another important export sector. Since the late 1970s, towns in the north began industrial production through maquiladoras, especially in San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortés.
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The history of South Korea begins with the Japanese surrender on 2 September 1945. At that time, South Korea and North Korea were divided, despite being the same people and on the same peninsula. In 1950, the Korean War broke out. North Korea overran South Korea until US-lead UN forces intervened. At the end of the war in 1953, the border between South and North remained largely similar. Tensions between the two sides continued. South Korea alternated between dictatorship and liberal democracy. It underwent substantial economic development.
The economy of South Korea is a highly developed mixed economy. By nominal GDP, ₩2.24 quadrillion, it has the 4th largest economy in Asia and the 12th largest in the world. South Korea is notable for its rapid economic development from an underdeveloped nation to a developed, high-income country in a few generations. This economic growth has been described as the Miracle on the Han River, which has allowed it to join the OECD and the G20. South Korea remains one of the fastest-growing developed countries in the world following the Great Recession and the COVID-19 recession. It is included in the group of Next Eleven countries as having the potential to play a dominant role in the global economy by the middle of the 21st century.
Import substitution industrialization (ISI) is a trade and economic policy that advocates replacing foreign imports with domestic production. It is based on the premise that a country should attempt to reduce its foreign dependency through the local production of industrialized products. The term primarily refers to 20th-century development economics policies, but it has been advocated since the 18th century by economists such as Friedrich List and Alexander Hamilton.
A chaebol is a large industrial South Korean conglomerate run and controlled by an individual or family. A chaebol often consists of multiple diversified affiliates, controlled by a person or group. Several dozen large South Korean family-controlled corporate groups fall under this definition. The term first appeared in English text in 1972.
The fourth Republic of Korea (Korean: 제4공화국) was the government of South Korea from November 1972 to March 1981.
The fifth Republic of South Korea was the government of South Korea from March 1981 to December 1987.
The Miracle on the Han River refers to the period of rapid economic growth in South Korea, following the Korean War (1950–1953), during which South Korea transformed from a least developed country to a developed country.
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Developmental state, or hard state, is a term used by international political economy scholars to refer to the phenomenon of state-led macroeconomic planning in East Asia in the late 20th century. In this model of capitalism, the state has more independent, or autonomous, political power, as well as more control over the economy. A developmental state is characterized by having strong state intervention, as well as extensive regulation and planning. The term has subsequently been used to describe countries outside East Asia that satisfy the criteria of a developmental state. The developmental state is sometimes contrasted with a predatory state or weak state.
The Taiwan Miracle or Taiwan Economic Miracle refers to Taiwan's rapid economic development to a developed, high-income country during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The Five-Year Economic and Social Development Plans were a series of economic development projects in South Korea.
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The East Asian model, pioneered by Japan, is a plan for economic growth whereby the government invests in certain sectors of the economy in order to stimulate the growth of specific industries in the private sector. It generally refers to the model of development pursued in East Asian economies such as Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It has also been used by some to describe the contemporary economic system in Mainland China after Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms during the late 1970s and the current economic system of Vietnam after its Đổi Mới policy was implemented in 1986. Generally, as a country becomes more developed, the most common employment industry transitions from agriculture to manufacturing, and then to services.
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Kim Young-sam, often referred to by his initials YS, was a South Korean politician and activist who served as the 7th president of South Korea from 1993 to 1998.
This article is intended to give an overview of the trade policy of South Korea. In 1945 Korea was liberated from the Empire of Japan at the end of World War II. A destructive drought in 1958 forced Korea to import large amounts of food grains. In 1950, the Korean war broke out, which destroyed more than two-thirds of the nation's production facilities and most of its infrastructure. Trade policy of South Korea has taken many shifts, from import substitution to globalization and there has been significant impact on the economy for the same.
The defense industry of South Korea is the main supplier of armaments to the Republic of Korea's Armed Forces. Originally reliant on the United States to supply weapons to its armed forces, South Korea started to manufacture its own weapons through the country's modernization and military reforms. Today, South Korea enjoys a robust defense industry and is the world's 8th largest weapons exporter.