South Korean Shipyards: Opportunity or Threat?

When Hyundai shipyards received their first supertanker order ever from a Greek shipowner some 20 years earlier, no one could imagine that 20 years later Hyundai would become the largest shipyard on earth. When Hyundai’s workers realized that the two sections of their first supertanker wouldn’t fit into each other and the Greek shipowner refused to accept the vessel even after the problem was corrected, everyone was sure that South Korea’s ambitions to become a shipbuilding power would soon deflate. Twenty years later, South Korea has achieved its goal and now its only concern is how to become the indisputable leader.

Although it sounds bizarre, South Korea had no considerable exposure to shipbuilding prior to the early 1970′s. Contrary to Japan, South Korea’s main rival with experience of over 400 years, South Korea had not been exposed to extensive shipbuilding activities until Park Chung Hee, a general who became president of the country after a coup, decided that South Korea needed to become a shipbuilding leader.

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