Robotization in Korea: Trend and implications for industrial development

This paper presents the result of a survey on the robotization in Korea as a typical case of newly industrializing countries (NICs), which have recently succeeded in promoting their export-led growth. The survey itself is the first effort in collecting detailed information on the degree of robotization, and its effects and impacts on the competitiveness of the modern industries in the developing countries. In contrast to the conventional hypothesis that the major factor of increased competitiveness of the NICs industries is their cheap labour cost, the present survey has revealed that the borrowed technology and know-how embodied in the imported robots are playing crucial role to improve their competiveness by upgrading the quality and confidence of the products, and by increasing the flexibility of the production lines. In short, the developing countries which have otherwise been stagnant in permanent backwardness of technology could easily step up to produce the products of same quality as high as the advanced countries, especially in automobile and semiconductor industries.