[msg3]

According to the Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang, the Korean government (or rather the dictator Park Chung Hee) is directly responsible for a lot of the success of the large Korean companies like Hyundai and Samsung.

It's been a while since I read the book (Bad Samaritans I think it's called), but I believe he offered them large government backed loans to move out of palm oil production and into more profitable areas like semiconductors.

[vmception]

Sounds like a good capital allocation by the government at the time! I'm guessing Samsung paid them back?

Any sectors that the Korean government is funding well or should be funding better these days?

[msg3]

I'm not sure about the current situation, but I believe the loans were maintained for a long time to ensure a certain level of government control over the large Chaebols.

[bobthepanda]

Most of the early stuff probably would have been wound down during 1998 when the Asian Financial Crisis brought down Daewoo and the IMF had to stabilize the government’s spending.