Report Tells of
Victorious Unified Economy
By Park Seong Guk [2012-08-13
12:12 ]
A new report by
Hyundai Research Institute predicts that if the North and South were to unify
their economies in 2013, by 2050 the unified entity would become the world’s
10th largest economy.
In the report released
on the 12th, ‘The Future Image of a Unified Korea, Global Emergence of One
Nation,’ senior research fellow Lee Hae Jung explained the reason behind the
report, saying, “There is the need to establish a popular consensus for the
construction of a unified Korean Peninsula.”
The report predicted
that 2050 would find a hypothetical unified Korea with a population of 73.5
million, making it the 26th largest country in the world by population (South
Korea is currently 41st). This would raise the productive population of the
unified state to 58% of total population, from the 54% of an independent South
Korea.
The report also
suggests that the unified Korea would rise to ninth place in terms of GDP (from
its current 15th), overcoming the economies of both the United Kingdom and
France by the year 2040.
It also predicts that
GDP per capita in this theoretical unified Korea would be $22,000 in 2015,
$43,000 in 2030 and $86,000 in 2050, once again overtaking many of today’s more
dominant economies, including Russia, France and Japan.
Contributing to the
report's rosy prediction of a revitalized unified Korean economy is the
estimated value of North Korea’s mineral resources and the potential to reduce
the combined defense budgets of the two states.
Overall, the report
predicts a reunified Korea would become the 10th largest economy in the world.
