Korea Seeks Low-Carbon, Green Growth
By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
South Korea will shift its growth paradigm to an environment-friendly and energy efficient one to both achieve sustainable economic growth and protect the Earth, abandoning its 60-year long manufacturing-based and export-oriented growth approach.
In a nationally televised address Friday, designed to mark the 60th anniversary of the national foundation, President Lee Myung-bak said the government will promote ``low carbon and green growth'' as the nation's new vision, adding it will develop and make the best use of green technology and clean energy as future growth engines.
``We will support job creation and overcome challenges from climate change and high fossil fuel prices through green growth, which helps reduce greenhouse gas emission and environmental pollution. Green growth is also a new national development paradigm that nurtures new growth boosters and creates jobs with green technology and clean energy,'' Lee said.
President Lee then said green growth is a future strategy that will enable another miracle on the Korean Peninsula to succeed the miracle on the Han River, adding the government will make sure the nation develops new green growth engines for future generations to use for the next 10 to 20 years.
``When we first manufactured cars here, the technology gap with the advanced economies was at least 50 years. But Korea has become a technology powerhouse, currently ranking first and fifth in production of semiconductors and automobiles. If we make up our mind before others and take action, we will become a leader in green growth,'' he stressed in the speech.
Such a sustainable and environment-conscious expansion approach is a dramatic shift from Lee's earlier quantatative``747'' plan, which aimed to achieve a high growth rate of over 7 percent, increase per capita income to $40,000 within a decade and make the nation the seventh largest economy in the world.
President Lee championed the high-growth and export-oriented polices during the presidential election campaign. He had to abandon it soon after he took the nation's highest office amid unfavorable internal and external conditions, including soaring oil prices.
The government had to lower the initial growth target of 7 percent for this year to 6 percent, and then below 5 percent in the wake of sluggish private consumption and corporate investment, weighed down by surging oil and other imported commodities.
Also, the administration's weak won policy designed to boost outbound shipments for higher growth and improve the current account balance backfired as the won's weakness against the dollar raised import costs of raw materials, pushing up the already high prices of goods and services here.
With skyrocketing oil prices hitting the nation's businesses and households hard, President Lee also pledged that Korea will achieve ``independence'' in the energy sector by increasing its energy self-supply ratio from the current 5 percent to over 50 percent by 2050.
``The nation does not produce a single drop of oil and such a reality poses both an opportunity and a challenge. We dealt well with the first and second oil shocks. Now is the time for us to turn the recent surge in oil prices into an opportunity by transforming our economic structure into a more energy efficient one,'' Lee stressed.
He said alternative energy, such as wind and other renewable sources, will meet 11 percent of demand by 2030, up from 2.4 percent.
``In particular, Korea will build one million ``green homes,'' which entirely depend on renewable energy sources for their power needs, and will become the world's fourth largest producer of environment-friendly ``green cars'' by 2020,'' Lee stressed.
The government will also strengthen research and exploitation of natural resources in the Arctic Ocean and Antarctic Continent as part of its effort to secure offshore energy resources, he said.