Korea-China IT Cooperation
Korea has to take an active role in order to establish complementary relations with China in the Internet industry.
According to a recent report released by the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI), China’s Internet industry is growing at a rapid pace with the penetration rate having risen to 45.8 percent last year when more than 618 million Chinese used the Web.
“The Internet service market amounted to approximately 600.4 billion yuan [US$97.83 billion] as of the end of 2013, and mobile Internet services represented about 20 percent of it, on which Chinese Internet firms can grow and expand overseas,” the report read. It also put forward, “This could be both a challenge and an opportunity for Korean companies, and thus we need to find how to make the most of China’s capital and platform so as to forestall the threat and build complementary industrial relations.”
As specific examples of the measures, the institute suggested the encouragement of promising venture firms and venture investment collections based on the abundant financial resources of Chinese Internet firms, and overseas businesses based on cooperation between Chinese Internet platform companies and Korean device manufacturers and content developers.