Essay About Republic Of Korea

Republic of Korea

Country Analysis

MARK 465 – International Marketing

April 2, 2014

Meghan Maloy

Basil Nikolopoulos

Xiaoman Wu

Jiacheng Zhu

Introduction

The Republic of Korea, also known as South Korea, is a country occupying the southern part of the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. Korea’s history can date back to 2333 BC, when Gojoseon was founded by Dangun. Based on linguistic evidence, it seems that the people of Korea largely immigrated there from the Altai Mountains and were initially from Manchuria, Mongolia, and China (“History before Division” 2014). In 1945, northern and southern parts of Korea were occupied by Soviet Union and United States troops, respectively, which made the country become one of the only divided countries in the world (“History after Division” 2014).

South Korea’s capital is Seoul. The current leader President Park Geun-hye, who is the first female president in Korea’s history, was elected in 2013. South Korea has a presidential republic government system. Combined with centralized economic planning and government regulation, its mixed economic system gave this developed country a high standard of living (“Introduction” 2014).

Over the past several decades, South Korea’s economy has achieved a high level of growth. Along with Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, South Korea is a member of the Four Asian Tigers, and it is the only developed country that included in the Next Eleven group (“Economic Statistics” 2014). However, foreign goods and services that attempt to enter the Korean market to compete with the domestic competition still face several entry barriers that come from Korea’s excessive government oversight. The government’s high tariffs and other means of restriction lead to increased costs.

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...s of high quality and readily available. There are approximately 30.1 million active main lines in use and 53.625 million mobile lines in use. Internet usage is also in high demand with approximately 39.4 million Internet users (“World Factbook” 2014). South Korea is currently the top ranking country in internet speed and recent technological developments will soon make Korean internet speeds nearly 50 times faster than an average US connection (Neal 2014). The media in Korea is comprised of multiple national TV networks with Seoul Broadcasting Service (SBS) being the largest privately owned network. SBS has a widespread network throughout all media types including radio and television (“World Factbook” 2014). Korea’s communications network embraces and incorporates the latest technologies and that progressive attitude makes it one of the most advanced in the world.