Korea to Increase R&D Spending 10%
By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday the government will increase investment in research and development (R&D) by 10 percent every year until 2012 to help Korea become a science-technology powerhouse.
If the promise is kept, Korea will see the ratio of R&D investment to gross domestic product (GDP) rise to 5 percent in 2012, compared with 3.49 percent in 2007, according to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
``The economic crisis is challenging for us, but at the same time provides opportunities,'' Lee said in a ceremony marking Science Day. ``There will be no better time to increase investment in science technology. The investment will help us not only overcome this crisis, but develop a future economic growth engine.''
The ministry said it will continue to increase spending on basic science research. About half of the total R&D spending will be spent in 2012, compared with 25 percent of the total in 2008.
Korea is good at adaptation and the practical application of technologies but lags in basic research fields compared to countries like the United States and Japan, a ministry official said.
That handicap has caused the country to rely on borrowed technologies and prevented it from emerging as a technological leader, the official said.
``Though we are producing the world's best-selling products, we are paying large amounts of money to foreign nations for use of their technology because of our lack of indigenous technologies,'' President Lee said.
One of the areas in which the country can take a dominant position is the ``green growth'' industry, he said.
``We established green growth as a vision for our national growth before any other country, as it will help us deal with the issue of climate change that faces all mankind,'' Lee said. ``From now on, indigenous green technologies will be the key determinants of economic growth and sustainable development.''
At a Cabinet meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Lee called for renewed efforts to overcome the ongoing economic downturn, saying that an immediate or short-term improvement of conditions is not the aim of the government.
``The reason the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) predicted the speed of Korea's economic recovery will be the fastest is because we are taking swift measures in the face of a crisis unseen in history,'' Lee said.
But the president cautioned against premature optimism.
``We must continue to strictly implement our recovery measures. Our results for the first quarter were relatively good, but we will be judged based on our end results, not our mid-term reports,'' Lee said.