22
Oct
Three primary factors are behind South Korea’s renewed interest in SSA. The first is Seoul’s pursuit of food and energy security. The country’s rapid industrial transformation after the Korean War (1950–53) meant that the agricultural sector suffered greatly from the effects of modernization. While 70–80 per cent of the population worked in agricultural production before the war, the figure today stands at around 8 per cent. As a result, South Korea currently imports around 90 per cent of its food supply.1 SSA’s vast tracts of prime arable land are therefore of increasing interest to policy-makers in Seoul.2 Similarly, domestic oil and gas resources are in short supply, meaning that the economy is highly dependent on energy imports. South Korea, the world’s 26th most populous country, is the fifth largest net importer of crude oil and the fourth largest net importer of natural gas.3 The vast majority of its oil imports are from the Middle East, with 71 per cent coming from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states alone.4 Such an overwhelming reliance on Middle East oil, coupled with Seoul’s policy of buying substantial amounts of cheap Iranian oil (despite US misgivings), makes South Korea highly vulnerable to supply disruption and market volatility, both of which are significant concerns in the Middle East. In addition, growing domestic concerns regarding the reliability of nuclear power generation, exacerbated by regulatory scandals in the domestic nuclear sector, as well as the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan, drive the renewed focus on SSA’s extensive oil and gas reserves.
Second, South Korea’s saturated domestic market has meant that the country’s manufacturing has become increasingly export-oriented. The heavy industrial sector is pivotal to the growth of the economy, with the top 30 South Korean business conglomerates (chaebol) accounting for 82 per cent of the country’s exports.5 SSA is perceived as a frontier market for South Korean exports because of the region’s pressing need for major infrastructural development and its growing, albeit nascent, middle class.6
The third main impetus for South Korea’s renewed engagement with SSA concerns Seoul’s aspirations to be recognized as a prominent global power. Although President Park Geun-hye has improved relations with China, as reflected by the first China–Korea summit in Beijing in June 2013, South Korea is alarmed by China’s rapid upsurge in influence internationally, and has sought to counter the leverage enjoyed by its rival by attempting to carve out its own pockets of influence in SSA. South Korean policy-makers have pointed to the necessity of gaining a firm foothold before other global competitors take everything, in what they see as a new ‘scramble for Africa’.7
Access the full Chatham house research paper here: http://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/south-korea%E2%80%99s-engagement-sub-saharan-africa-fortune-fuel-and-frontier-markets