The Assessment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Policy in South Korea

The economic development in South Korea has been heavily relied on ICT industries. As the 10th largest economic scale in the world, Korea is ranked high in her ICT infrastructure and competitiveness. The main factors of this accomplishment are successful leaderships of Korean governments, intensive investment on public infrastructure, direct support to the ICT industry, competition-based industrial structure, and ICT convergent policies. This paper evaluates Korean ICT policy in terms of government leaderships and consequent infrastructure and performances. As a policy implication, we suggest that ICT policy in Korea focus more on strategic perspectives, development of software and source technology, and securing high-brains in ICT industries. Further, we conclude that the cyber count-intelligence capability is needed, which is accomplished through building the capacity in high-edge convergent industries, supporting software industries and small firms, focusing on local ICT industries as a new driving force in the future.