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China has been rapidly narrowing the technological gap with South Korea, not just in information and communications but in most areas. A Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) brief on March industry trends Monday showed the technology gap between South Korean manufacturers and Chinese ones to be 3.7 years.
The gap has been steadily narrowing since KIET conducted its first such study in 2002, falling from 4.7 years then to 4.0 in 2004 and 3.8 in 2007. At this rate, it has narrowed by roughly one year every decade. The latest study examined 628 small, medium, and large companies between June and October of 2011.
The gap was smallest in information and communications at 2.9 years, and largest in light industries at 4 years. The results suggest far faster progress by Chinese businesses in cutting-edge industry. In particular, the technology gap in the area of semiconductors was just 2.4 years.