Impact on the Korean Economy with the Growth of Other Countries’ Semiconductor

     Korea is well known for creating one of the most high-quality semiconductors in the world. This can be shown by the fact that the semiconductor export has a high increase compared to each year, and especially for this year, it has been about a 66% increase. However, Korea is not the only country that seeks for the beneficiary with the semiconductors. Then, how would the increase in other countries’ semiconductor markets affect Korea’s economy?

     Currently, there are four major countries in the global semiconductor market which are Taiwan, China, the United States of America, and Japan, excluding Korea. Especially the global semiconductor industry is colliding around two types of gigantic paradigm shifts; the AI revolution and supply chain restructure due to the US’ sanctions on the Chinese semiconductor market. The United States is blocking the production of Chinese Semiconductor exports to the country so that they can keep in check the growth of Chinese economic benefits using the diverse trade using their high production rate compared with other countries, based on their amount of plants. From this situation, the Korean market can expect the reverse gain between the two country’s market competition.

     However, it is expected that the Taiwan semiconductor makes it hard for Korea to maintain its export value. First of all, Taiwan has the highest-ranked semiconductor production all around the world. Producing over 60% of the semiconductors, Taiwan is highly supporting the dominant brand TSMC(Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation). The real problem is that Japan is cooperating with TSMC, creating the factory in their land. This will have a high effect on Korean economics if Korea cannot survive this global competition.

    Since IT including the semiconductor market has about a 50% portion of the Korean industry and economy, the decrease in the export rate of semiconductors will highly affect the Korean economy not for 50% but more than that. What Korea will have to do to stop this situation will a creation of big change. 

     The Korean market for semiconductors has been steady with reasonable maintenance. However, this was when Taiwan was the only competitor that Korea should have thought of. Nowadays the global semiconductor market has increased by 573.44 Billion USD in 2022, thus showing the expectation of 12.2% growth throughout the world. Korea will have to seek for new spots that they can mainly improve or differ from other nations and stabilize their own primacy.