S-Korea's GDP to eclipse Japan's? [ by eurotechnology.com ]

S-Korea's GDP to overtake Japan's in 10 years?

Not only China to overtake Japan? Aug. 16, 2010

, today's headlines in Wallstreet Journal reported that China's Economy (GDP) is about to overtake Japan's this year.

In a recent presentation to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, this author reported that if current trends continue, Japan's GDP will also be overtaken by South Korea's within about 10 years - see figure below.

(These statements have to be taken with grains of salt, because there is no precise method to define and measure GDP, and to compare the GDP of different countries.- "GDP" is open to interpretation and is a political measure not a scientific quantity).

Will S-Korea's GDP overtake Japan's within 10 years?

If trends continue, S-Korea's GDP is expected to overtake Japan's within about 10 years

If current growth trends continue, and if there are no major changes, we expect South Korea's GDP to exceed Japan's from 2020 (the figure uses logarithmic scale for the GDP which is the appropriate mathematical method when we are dealing with annually accumulating percentage growth).

The figure shows that Japan's and S-Korea's economies were growing at similar rates until 1995.

Since 1995 South Korea's economy continued growth, which was only interrupted briefly by the Asian Financial crisis. Japan's economy stopped to grow in 1995.

Until 1995 we had essentially national / machinery / FAX-machine economies.
From 1995 the present global / IT / knowledge / internet economy developed, which demands new management and leadership structures and changes to the educational systems to continue growth.

We developed detailed proposals for these necessary changes in our "Post-Galapagos Working Group" of 26 Japanese leaders, where the present author is the only non-Japanese member.

There is no reason why Japan cannot make these necessary changes and resume growth again.

(for more detailed discussions download the "Galapagos effect" presentation given at the American Chamber of Commerce, and our report on Japan's electrical industries).

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Founded in 1996/1997 in Tokyo, Eurotechnology Japan KK focuses on telecommunications and environmental industries. We work on M&A and help foreign companies grow in Japan, we help Japanese companies globalize, and we have advised about 100 investment fund managers over the years on technology industries. Our founder Gerhard Fasol works with Japan's telecom industry since 1984.
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Eurotechnology Japan K. K.