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Other Manufacturing Industries
in Korea
Environmental Industry
The environmental industry has not yet been classified
under a Standard Industry Classification (SIC) code. The industry includes many
diverse sectors, and the differences in published estimates of total market size
are mainly the result of varying sector and industry definitions. In most
countries, the environmental industry includes environmental equipment and
services concerned with water quality, air quality and waste. The environmental
industry market is formed of agents preventing, mitigating and eliminating
pollutants inclusive of governments, enterprises, and households.
Korea's rapid industrial development during the past thirty
years has been astounding by any standard. However, this growth has come at a
well-recognized environmental cost. Environmental policy was not integrated into
industrial policies at the beginning of Korea's development push since the
1960s. The push for economic growth has resulted in health-endangering pollution
and exhaust in cities and industrial areas, badly polluted streams and rivers,
and soil from acid rain, chemicals, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers.
To remedy this situation, the Korean Constitution was amended
in 1987 to provide citizens the right to a clean environment. The integration of
environmental and industrial policy accelerated in Korea since 1992, after a
phenol spill in Korea's Naktonggang river in 1991 and the U.N. Conference on
Environment and Development in 1992 focused national attention on the need to
bring the environment to the forefront of Korea's economic priorities.
Central and local/municipal government expenditures for
environmental conservation have remained at about one percent of GDP during the
1990s. Although all pollution-related expenditures are up, the levels of air
quality, water quality, and wastes grow worse. The potential of the Korean
market for environmental goods and services has been conservatively estimated at
more than US$ 8 billion annually, or about 1.9 percent of GDP in 1996.
The environmental industry very rapidly developed at about a
15 percent average annual growth rate in the 1990s. Since enterprises reduced
their environmental equipment investment, the environmental industry developed
rather slowly in 1997. The production of the environmental industry rose by
about 2.1 percent in 1996, on the basis of the Korean Won, but its US$7.9
billion in industry sales were reduced by 13.7 percent in 1997 due to the
unfavorable exchange rates for the Won. The production of the environmental
industry in 1998 is expected to reach to US$4.7 billion, a significant 40.8
percent reduction compared to the last year. The decrease is due to the
increasing sluggish trend of environmental investment by enterprises.
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Information
provided by the Korean Embassy
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