"The Host"... China's fierce pursuit..."Korea will use 'Chinese' semiconductor chips in the future" [Y Record]

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor
■ Starring: Yeom Seung-hwan, director of LS Securities

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsNOW] when quoting.

◇ Anchor> Domestic demand is not good these days and the KOSPI market is like this, so there are predictions that the Korean economy will grow low next year, but the problem is that there may be cycles in the economy, and there are concerns that this is really going to low growth like Japan. How do you see that, personally?

◆Yum Seung-hwan> In the past, Japan experienced a bubble burst and asset prices collapsed, which led to a very long low growth, but Korea now seems to be similar to Germany or Europe rather than asset price bubbles. Because Germany and Europe were doing well, but if you look at the recent news, Europe's competitiveness is poor. One of the reasons that is mentioned a lot is the competitiveness with China. That's why it's the same in China. We also sold a lot of goods to China, especially Volkswagen in Germany sold a lot of cars in China. They say that 50% of their sales come from China. But the situation of Chinese cars is that most people buy electric cars. One of the two people is in an electric car. China is the number one electric car in the world right now. And it's also cheap. However, the high labor costs in Europe can't handle it. But it's not just a problem in Germany, but it's also contrasting with us. Korea used to export a lot to China, but in the end, as China is self-sufficient and we are fiercely competing with Chinese products in other countries, we are increasingly faced with a very strong wall called China to grow as high as before. So, one of the reasons why the Bank of Korea has recently lowered its growth forecast is that there is a big wall of tariffs over the next four years in the Trump era. We are a country that makes a living by exporting. Since these are uncertain, it is often said that it is a potential growth rate, a growth rate at which we can invest everything to grow. It usually catches 2% of it now, but the Bank of Korea has lowered its growth rate to 1.9%, so it seems that these are quite worrisome that low growth will become fixed.

◇Anchor> It's such a depressing situation where bad news continues to overlap, and these analyses are coming out, and you said a little while ago that China will take a large part of the market with ours, but semiconductors were the main items of our exports, and it's written by Chip War. Professor Chris Miller said this. He said that Korea could use Chinese chips in the future and that such an era could come soon.

◆Yum Seung-hwan> In my opinion, one of the reasons why I think this is unlikely is, of course, a threat. And the background of this conversation is that Samsung Electronics and Hynix factories are there. They produce a lot there. However, due to US regulations, it is called advanced semiconductor equipment. It's hard to get a lot of those things in the future. However, our factories make high-tech semiconductors, but China is slightly restricted due to U.S. regulations. However, Korea can mount such products in low-priced products, but high-end products such as high-tech products and smartphones and AI products actually lack the capacity to make them because China does not have such equipment. But of course, it will change when the U.S. lifts regulations. This person may be right. However, in the case of President-elect Trump, China's regulations may be tightened. If we regulate general-purpose semiconductors and slightly cheaper semiconductors other than high-tech semiconductors now, China could be hit hard. So it's true that I'm concerned. It is true that China is chasing too much, but Trump's semiconductor policy has not yet come out clearly. If we check it, this may become a reality, but it may not be possible, so I think we need to look at the policies of the next U.S. administration first and respond to them rather than just being too concerned.



Excerpted from
: Lee Mi-young, editor of the digital news team

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