Pig hair was once one of the nation’s top 10 export items, but Korea has now become a powerhouse in advanced technology categories like semiconductors.
The “miraculous development” of Korea was evident in the 100-year history of the country’s census, which made its debut in 1949 following the establishment of the government of the Republic of Korea.
The census data was released by Statistics Korea (KOSTAT) on Aug. 18. A population census was first launched in 1925.
In 1961, iron ore was the nation’s top export item. Among the top export items were silk, squid, and pig hair.
At that time, street sweepers gathered gingko leaves and collected urine to export Urokinase, a drug for treating strokes. Such efforts made by the population have paid off: Korea, which was once the poorest country in the world after the ashes of the Korean War, has now joined the ranks of export powerhouses.
The milestone was marked on the occasion of the 80th Liberation Day anniversary. Korea’s mainstay exports items have shifted to heavy, chemical, and advanced industries, such as electronics, automobiles and semiconductors.
Korea’s gross domestic product stood at 47.74 billion won in 1953 when the nation reconstruction began following the end of the Korean War.
At that time, the figure accounted for about 0.12 percent of the GDP of the United States, the No. 1 global power.
But Korea has gone from strength to strength with an annual average growth rate of 17 percent, as the nation saw 2024 GDP surge to 2,556,857.4 billion won, a 53,500-fold jump in some 70 years.
The nation saw per capita gross national income (GNI) jump from $67 in 1963 to $36,745 in 2024. In particular, Korea began to see its GNI surpass that of Japan in 2023.
According to the census, most of the top 10 export items in 1961 were minerals, fisheries products and agricultural produce. They were barely called processed export items, except for plywood products.
Things changed, however, as the government pushed ahead with policies to revive the national economy with heavy industries and exports.
The nation saw the export growth rate average 41.1 percent in the 1960s, on the back of garments and wig exports from textile processing complexes.
It was in 1964 that the nation saw exports top $100 million.
Korea built a manufacturing foundation through the construction of the Ulsan petrochemical complex and Pohang Steelworks, now POSCO, in the early 1970s. In l1976, the nation began to export the car “Pony.”
Korea maintained a high growth curb with an annual average export growth rate of 37.5 percent in the 1970s, and the nation saw exports top $1 billion and $10 billion in 1971 and 1977, respectively.
Over the years, the nation has seen the position of its mainstay export items change. Garments were the No. 1 export item in 1980, followed by steel plates and shoes as first and second runner-up, respectively, and at that time. Semiconductors ranked 10th, representing the genesis of becoming a semiconductor export powerhouse.
In 2005, 25 years later, semiconductors ranked as the nation’s No. 1 export item, and advanced export items, such as automobiles, mobile handsets, ships and computers ranked highly.
This trend continued to hold, as statistics showed in 2015.
Semiconductors and automobiles have maintained their standing as the nation’s No. 1 and No. 2 export items, respectively.
An official of the Korea International Trade Association said, “Exports have served as an engine of the miraculous Korean economy for the past 70 years, and at this juncture of rising global economic uncertainties, now is the time when we will have to see our trade make a leap forward again.”
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