Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T15:01:52.700Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Korean Assistance to Southeast Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2015

Yul Kwon
Affiliation:
Sogang University, Seoul
Get access

Summary

Introduction

Korea, as a country that achieved remarkable industrial growth out of a war-torn economy in the 1950s, owes much of its economic success during the past four decades to the assistance and support of the international community. Until the 1980s, Korea received development assistance worth over US$15 billion, which provided the country with strong momentum for rapid economic development. Its economy now ranks among the middle-level OECD countries, as the world's twelfth economy in terms of GDP and trade volume.

Korea has successfully transformed itself from an aid recipient to an emerging donor through rapid economic development with its outstanding economic and social performance. As a former beneficiary of development cooperation, Korea now acknowledges that its effort to extend ODA is in reciprocating what it received from the international community in the past.

Currently, most of Korea's official development assistance (ODA) is concentrated in the Asian region. In 2006, 60.5 per cent of bilateral ODA was disbursed to Asia and 24.2 per cent of bilateral grant aid was disbursed to Southeast Asia. This high level of concentration is partly due to the geographical and cultural proximity between Korea and the countries in the region. In particular, Korea has maintained close economic and diplomatic relationships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is one of the Korea's important trade and investment partners. So, there are undoubtedly common interests and potentials for further cooperation between Korea and ASEAN.

Since the 1997 financial crisis, Korea and ASEAN have launched a number of different regional initiatives, such as ASEAN-Korea FTA and ASEAN+3, etc. In particular, Korea has participated in the global trend of RTAs by concluding an FTA with ASEAN that entered into force in June 2007. Korea is also focusing on promoting development cooperation between the relatively well-off ASEAN members and the CLMV countries (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam) to address a wide development gap within the region.

In addition, Korea has shared its experience of economic development with ASEAN members and made efforts to help apply its experience to the closing of the development gap among Southeast Asian countries.

Type
Chapter
Information
Korea's Changing Roles in Southeast Asia
Expanding Influence and Relations
, pp. 155 - 175
Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×