China is poised to overtake Korea in new growth industries that are vital to Seoul's ability to remain globally competitive in the future, a local poll showed Wednesday.
The survey conducted on 32 industrial experts nationwide showed China catching up rapidly in next generation technologies such as solar and wind power generation, electric vehicles, biotech businesses and so-called smart equipment areas, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) said.
"Of the respondents, 90.4 percent said Japan is the technological leader among the three Northeast Asian countries at present, but many pointed out that China is catching up rapidly," the lobbying group for the country's largest conglomerates said.
Japan ranked first in terms of key technologies possessed by its companies, mass production capabilities and numbers of qualified workers. South Korea and China tied, receiving top marks from just 4.8 percent, respectively, of the experts surveyed.
South Korea was ranked higher than China in technology and production capabilities, but trailed in the quality and number of experienced industrial workers.
The FKI poll, however, said that in 10 years, China will be the leader in terms of overall competitiveness in the new growth industries, followed by Japan and South Korea.
South Korea's capabilities matched 78 percent of those of the world's most technologically advanced countries, according to the latest research.
"This means South Korea trails Japan by three to five years overall in the cutting edge industries, although the gap is narrower in mass production capabilities," the federation said.
Local experts concurrently predicted that global economic sluggishness could cause a decrease in state research and development (R&D) support in 2012, compared to this year.
Such changes could be bad news for the country as a whole and must be corrected, the report said, stressing that despite slower growth, the government and businesses must spend more on R&D and make a concerted effort to train qualified engineers.
(Yonhap)