A Technological Perspective on The General Machinery Industry in the Republic of Korea

There is nothing extraordinary about the fact that countries classified as less developed produce a large fraction of their general machinery requirements. In the mid-1960s, when the Republic of Korea (hereinafter South Korea or just plain Korea) had paved over the final cracks of its civil war but was only beginning to launch its development drive, it was producing over half its requirements of general machinery (ISIC 382, which includes such items as prime movers, metal working equipment, special industrial machinery, general machinery parts, etc.) (KTA, 1966). At the time, the machinery sector at large (ISIC 38) accounted at most for only about 10–15 per cent of manufacturing value added (EPB, 1966).