South Korea is one of the technologically advanced nations and the 12th largest economy by nominal GDP across the globe. The country is a global leader in several technology and innovation-driven fields and is the 5th largest exporter and 8th largest importer globally. Bloomberg Innovation Index named South Korea as the world’s most innovative country for the sixth consecutive years. South Korea also homes several moguls such as Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., LG Electronics, Kia Motors, Hyundai Corp., and Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. that contribute majorly to the country’s economy. Additionally, the country is one of the leading countries in shipbuilding. Five out of the top ten enterprises (including the top four) are South Korean companies, with Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. owning the largest shipyard globally. Moreover, the UN Child Flourishing 2020 named South Korea as the second-best country in the world to raise kids with the best chance at survival, thriving and well-being due to good healthcare, education, and nutrition.
However, the economy of the country has been facing challenges owing to the recent outbreak of the deadliest coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, which originated from China. It is expected that the recent outbreak of COVID-19 could severely impact the South Korean economy and reflect the loss of around $3.8 billion in its GDP. Following the rapid spread of disease, the government of the country called on people to quarantine themselves and shut down businesses except for essential ones. This has forced several companies including Samsung and Hyundai to temporarily shut down their production unit which has led to disruption in their supply chain.
For instance, in February 2020, Hyundai Motor’s Ulsan plant put a break on its production after its one of the employees tested positive for coronavirus. The Ulsan plant of the company is responsible for manufacturing the GV80, Palisade, Santa Fe and Tucson. Moreover, the plant has an annual production capacity of around 1.4 million vehicles, accounting for around 30% of the overall Hyundai’s global production. Additionally, in March 2020, Samsung Electronics closed its assembly line at its smartphone factories in the Gumi industrial complex in the east of South Korea. Moreover, the company has also put a hold on its production factory based in Noida, India until 25th March 2020, which is the world’s biggest mobile manufacturing facility.
With the COVID-19 epidemic rampaging across the globe, the situation remains complex and challenging. The outbreak has affected more than 150 countries with governments calling on citizens to self-isolate, closing borders, putting cities into lockdown and shutting down all businesses except essential ones. The mortality toll in Italy overtook that of China’s, an epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. Amid the crisis and despite having the second-largest number of infected cases in Asia after China, South Korea is leading the way in handling the situation of the spread of COVID-10 with one of the lowest casualty rates across the globe. As per medical researchers from Johns Hopkins University, the mortality rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic was 0.97% in South Korea as of last week (15th March 2020 to 21st March 2020). While the mortality rate due to epidemic was 7.94% in Italy, 3.98% in mainland China, and 1.68% in the US during the same period. According to the researchers, South Korea has been able to handle the situation swiftly owing to its robust biotech industry that constitutes of many small companies run by scientists. These companies acted fast to rapidly develop test kits as soon as the Chinese published the sequence of the coronavirus and now the country has enough kits to screen around 20,000 people a day. The government of the country has set up several free testing centers and once the infected people are identified, they are quarantined as quickly as possible. During the first week of February when the infection was soaring at a rapid pace, the officials obtained mobile phone records, credit card receipts and other private data of every infected person for COVID-19. This information is further used to track the spread of the virus, making much of the data available to the public.
