LONDON — It’s been hard not to think about Korea this week. But I have different things on my mind. Not the loss of a dictator. Not the worry that still has South Korean’s practicing evacuations like WWII Britain and Cold War America.
I am thinking about Korea’s fertile business culture and the country’s uncanny ability to reinvent itself, rebuild and refocus just in time for tremendous success.
See if you can read this bit without stopping in your tracks:
- in 1961 South Korea ranked 117th in the world for arable land per capita (behind Saudi Arabia and Somalia)
- in the last 50 years Korea’s per-capita GDP has grown at 23,000 percent
- today the tiny country (smaller than Iceland) has the world’s 12th largest economy by purchasing power
- unemployment is 3.2 percent
- one of the world’s lowest rates of public debt
- 80% of the 49 million people live in urban areas
- Koreans are four times as likely to have high-speed internet access as Americans and they pay very little for it
A series of seemingly prescient government decisions have constantly shoved the economy in the right direction. Even through the tough economic times in the late 90s and mid 2000s the countries has seemed to make the right choices.
Today they are pushing — against their own traditions — for more entrepreneurship. And I wouldn’t bet against them.
In fact, I’d like to be there now. If the chaebols’ would give us a call? Samsung, LG, SK… we’d like a word.
/df
