Research and Markets: South Korea Water Purifier Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vsb9mh/south_korea_water) has announced the addition of the "South Korea Water Purifier Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017" report to their offering.

South Korean organized water purifier market has been expected to grow with the CAGR of around 16% which is anticipated to reach close to US$3.837 Billion by 2017. The drivers of the industry would be affordable rental system, rising disposable income and increasing health consciousness among South Korean consumers. RO based Water purifiers have been leading the market with nearly 66% of the market share with 1.068 Million units, reaching USD 1.00 Billion in 2011. UV and UF have contributed sales of USD 306 Million and USD 214 Million with 518 Thousand units and 1.7 Million units respectively in 2011 in South Korea. Major sales channel used for water purifiers are through reseller & direct sales which, together accounted for 68% of the total South Korean water purifier sales in 2011.

The water purifier market in South Korea has a huge potential. Keeping this in mind, the highlights of South Korea Water Purifier Plants Market Forecast & Opportunities, 2017 include: Global and South Korea Organized Water Purifier Market Size, Market Share with Forecast over the next 5 years, Water Purifier Certifications, Import and Production Scenario, RO, UV & Offline Water Purifier Market Size, Drivers and Restraints, Market Trends & Developments, Competitive Landscape and Strategic Recommendations.

Why you should buy this report

- To gain an in-depth understanding of water Purifier market dynamics in South Korea.

- To identify the on-going trends and expected anticipated growth in the coming years

- To help industry consultants, water purifier manufacturers and other stakeholders to align their market-centric strategies

- To obtain research based business decision and add weight to presentations and marketing materials.

- To gain competitive knowledge of leading players.

- To avail 10% customization in the report without any extra charges and get the research data or trends added in the report as per the buyer's specific needs.

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary

2. Global Water Purifier Market Outlook

3. South Korea Residential Water Purifier Market Outlook

4. Organised Sector Vs. Unorganised Sector

5. South Korea Water Purifier Production

6. Water Purifier Certifications

7. Export / Import Scenario

8. RO Water Purifiers Market

9. UV Water Purifiers Market

10. Offline Water Purifiers Market

11. Industry Trends

12. Competitive Landscape

13. Strategic Recommendations

Companies Mentioned

- Woongjin Coway

- Chungho Nais

- Amway Korea

- Tong Yang Magic

- Kyowon L&C

- LG Electronics Inc.

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/vsb9mh/south_korea_water

View the original article here

North Korea, New Land of Opportunity? - Businessweek

Lu Guanqiu Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

By Dexter Roberts

As chairman of Wanxiang Group, a Chinese auto parts and mining conglomerate, Lu Guanqiu knows the headaches of doing business in diverse environments. He controls dozens of factories in the U.S. that serve the troubled auto industry and mines in Indonesia, remote western China, and North Korea. “North Korea is like China was 30-plus years ago,” the onetime farmer says in a chilly reception room at Wanxiang’s headquarters in Hangzhou, 100 miles southwest of Shanghai. “Through our contact, we are certain they will become more open and more liberated.”

Despite its guiding doctrine of Juche, or self-reliance, and its reputation as a rogue nuclear state and the last bastion of personality-cult totalitarianism, North Korea is attracting foreign companies with an appetite for risk and a tolerance for government meddling. Chinese, South Korean, and about 30 European companies have invested in copper and gold mines, factories producing medications and blue jeans, and even Internet service. (Americans and Canadians are largely barred from doing business there.)

In Pyongyang, Egypt’s Orascom Telecom is building a 3G mobile-phone network and DHL delivers packages. Two Hong Kong-listed companies operate casinos for tourists (locals aren’t allowed in). France’s Lafarge owns 30 percent of a cement plant that employs 3,000 workers. German-backed outsourcer Nosotek offers North Korean programming help to Western companies developing cell-phone games. A Swedish group markets Noko Jeans, made in the North.

Total accumulated foreign investment in North Korea reached $1.475 billion in 2010, up from $1.437 billion the previous year, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Some $6.5 billion more is in the works as Chinese infrastructure companies plan new ports, highways, and power plants, according to the Samsung Economic Research Institute, a think tank in Seoul.

With mineral reserves valued at more than $6 trillion, according to South Korean state-owned mining company Korea Resources, the North has become a magnet for Chinese enterprises. Of the 138 Chinese companies registered as doing business in North Korea in 2010, 41 percent extract coal, iron, zinc, nickel, gold, and other minerals, according to the U.S. Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University. China’s investment in the North’s mineral sector since 2004 has reached $500 million, the Samsung Institute estimates. China accounted for 57 percent, or $3.5 billion, of the North’s foreign trade in 2010, up from 53 percent the previous year, according to South Korea’s statistical office. “The Chinese are storming in there and taking all the opportunities,” says Roger Barrett, managing director of Korea Business Consultants, a Beijing company that advises foreign investors in North Korea.

With the death of Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il in December and the elevation of his son, Kim Jong-Un, things could open up further. “One way or another, it is crucial for North Korea to renew its economy,” says Lee Jong-Woon, a researcher at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul. “We expect the new government to carry on attracting foreign capital.”

Those who invest will face countless hassles. North Korea’s roads are narrow and potholed. The country’s railroads and ports are a shambles, and its power grid struggles to keep the lights on. “Leadership decisions can supersede legal agreements,” says Scott Snyder, a Korea fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, in an e-mail. A 2009 investment guide from China’s Commerce Ministry warned that “recent Chinese enterprises investing in North Korea have major problems” and have been forced into an “unfavorable situation.”

In 2007, Wanxiang acquired a Chinese company that owned 51 percent of North Korea’s Hyesan Youth Copper Mine, an inactive facility two miles from the border with China. Two years later, after Wanxiang had revived the mine, the North Korean partner suddenly said it planned to take back full ownership with no compensation. Lu, who has close ties to Beijing’s central government and last year accompanied Chinese President Hu Jintao on a visit to the White House, contacted Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. After Wen raised the issue with Kim Jong-Il, Wanxiang was allowed to stay. “Our cultural backgrounds and mindsets are very different,” Lu says.

For some small South Korean companies, location trumps the political and infrastructure concerns. More than 100 enterprises from the South now run light manufacturing plants in the Gaeseong Industrial Park, a special economic zone just north of the border, where production started during a thaw in North-South relations in 2005. “I save time and logistics costs compared with running a business in Vietnam or Indonesia,” says Ok Sung Seok, president of Nine Mode, which has a men’s shirt factory at Gaeseong.

While production slowed after Kim’s death, Ok says things are back to normal and that the hassles are outweighed by the low cost of labor. He estimates that his workers are about 60 percent as productive as South Koreans, but he pays them just $160 per month. That’s one-fifth the minimum wage in the South and a quarter the salaries in a factory he operated in Qingdao, China. “The poorer productivity comes from politics, not from laziness or a lack of skill,” Ok says. Government officials “put a priority on political events rather than spending more time for production.”

The bottom line: Despite hassles and bureaucratic meddling, cumulative foreign investment in North Korea jumped to nearly $1.5 billion in 2010.

With Seonjin Cha and Rose Kim

Roberts is Bloomberg Businessweek's Asia News Editor and China bureau chief.

View the original article here

Why Some See Business Opportunities with New Leadership in North Korea - World

Economy Why Some See Business Opportunities with New Leadership in North KoreaAudio: Play | Download

South Korean activists protest against both the hereditary succession in North Korea and those who wish to go to the North to pay respects to Kim Jong-il. (Photo: Reuters/NewsLook)

The son of the late North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il was given a promotion on Monday.

Kim Jong Un now heads the ruling Worker’s Party’s central committee, a post that helps clear the way for him to take over following his father’s death from an apparent heart attack earlier this month.

But little is known about the young Kim, who’s believed to be in his late 20s. Uncertainty in the North often translates to uncertainty in South Korea’s economy.

For instance, back in 1994, after North Korea’s founding ruler Kim Il Sung passed away, consumers in the South hoarded staples, fearing an outbreak of war.

But that doesn’t appear to be happening this time around. At the Well Being neighborhood market in Seoul, a clerk said nothing changed after news of the death of Kim Jong Il. Prices are the same and there’s no shortage of goods.

Whenever bad news comes out of North Korea, like when it tested a nuclear device in 2006, or when it attacked a South Korean island last year, the stock market in the South reacts. Lim Soo-ho, an analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said South Korea’s KOSPI did drop a few points after the announcement of Kim’s death, but bounced back two days later.

According to Lim, South Korea’s economy has remained virtually unaffected because investors and consumers don’t see North Korea’s transition as a problem.

He added that people here have experienced these types of situations before, like in 1994. They’ve learned from them; any bad situation has always gone back to normal.

Lim said it also helps that the South Korean government isn’t provoking North Korea, like it did with a military build up in 1994.

Seoul’s expat business community didn’t flinch either, according to Tom Coyner, president of Soft Landing Consulting. He said the shock could have been greater if investors hadn’t seen this one coming.

“Korea seems to be a country that operates on a crisis du jour basis, so we have Kim Jong Il dying, but that’s not a big unexpected event. We knew he was in poor health and the business environment is taking it in stride,” Coyner said.

But Coyner said that given that we still don’t know a lot about the son, Kim Jong Un, investors and other business leaders will have to wait and see how things play out once he officially takes over.

Still, some observers see opportunity in Kim Jong Un’s rise to power.

Hank Ahn, a commissioner at KOTRA, a trade and investments agency, said the younger Kim’s exposure to the West during his school years in Switzerland could mean he’s open to doing business with the outside world — and that’s something South Korea could cash in on.

“It’s quite natural we can assume that North Korea will eventually open up its economy to the outside world,” Ahn said. “So it’s better for us, we can reduce our unification costs when the two countries are reunified, even if we don’t know when. And besides, we can export our products to North Korea as well.”

But Kim Jong Un might have more immediate concerns on his mind.

He’s preparing for his father’s funeral on Wednesday. So improving North Korea’s economy may have to wait.

View the original article here

Why Some See Business Opportunities with New Leadership in North Korea - World

Economy Why Some See Business Opportunities with New Leadership in North KoreaAudio: Play | Download

South Korean activists protest against both the hereditary succession in North Korea and those who wish to go to the North to pay respects to Kim Jong-il. (Photo: Reuters/NewsLook)

The son of the late North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il was given a promotion on Monday.

Kim Jong Un now heads the ruling Worker’s Party’s central committee, a post that helps clear the way for him to take over following his father’s death from an apparent heart attack earlier this month.

But little is known about the young Kim, who’s believed to be in his late 20s. Uncertainty in the North often translates to uncertainty in South Korea’s economy.

For instance, back in 1994, after North Korea’s founding ruler Kim Il Sung passed away, consumers in the South hoarded staples, fearing an outbreak of war.

But that doesn’t appear to be happening this time around. At the Well Being neighborhood market in Seoul, a clerk said nothing changed after news of the death of Kim Jong Il. Prices are the same and there’s no shortage of goods.

Whenever bad news comes out of North Korea, like when it tested a nuclear device in 2006, or when it attacked a South Korean island last year, the stock market in the South reacts. Lim Soo-ho, an analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said South Korea’s KOSPI did drop a few points after the announcement of Kim’s death, but bounced back two days later.

According to Lim, South Korea’s economy has remained virtually unaffected because investors and consumers don’t see North Korea’s transition as a problem.

He added that people here have experienced these types of situations before, like in 1994. They’ve learned from them; any bad situation has always gone back to normal.

Lim said it also helps that the South Korean government isn’t provoking North Korea, like it did with a military build up in 1994.

Seoul’s expat business community didn’t flinch either, according to Tom Coyner, president of Soft Landing Consulting. He said the shock could have been greater if investors hadn’t seen this one coming.

“Korea seems to be a country that operates on a crisis du jour basis, so we have Kim Jong Il dying, but that’s not a big unexpected event. We knew he was in poor health and the business environment is taking it in stride,” Coyner said.

But Coyner said that given that we still don’t know a lot about the son, Kim Jong Un, investors and other business leaders will have to wait and see how things play out once he officially takes over.

Still, some observers see opportunity in Kim Jong Un’s rise to power.

Hank Ahn, a commissioner at KOTRA, a trade and investments agency, said the younger Kim’s exposure to the West during his school years in Switzerland could mean he’s open to doing business with the outside world — and that’s something South Korea could cash in on.

“It’s quite natural we can assume that North Korea will eventually open up its economy to the outside world,” Ahn said. “So it’s better for us, we can reduce our unification costs when the two countries are reunified, even if we don’t know when. And besides, we can export our products to North Korea as well.”

But Kim Jong Un might have more immediate concerns on his mind.

He’s preparing for his father’s funeral on Wednesday. So improving North Korea’s economy may have to wait.

View the original article here

Why Some See Business Opportunities with New Leadership in North Korea - World

Economy Why Some See Business Opportunities with New Leadership in North KoreaAudio: Play | Download

South Korean activists protest against both the hereditary succession in North Korea and those who wish to go to the North to pay respects to Kim Jong-il. (Photo: Reuters/NewsLook)

The son of the late North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il was given a promotion on Monday.

Kim Jong Un now heads the ruling Worker’s Party’s central committee, a post that helps clear the way for him to take over following his father’s death from an apparent heart attack earlier this month.

But little is known about the young Kim, who’s believed to be in his late 20s. Uncertainty in the North often translates to uncertainty in South Korea’s economy.

For instance, back in 1994, after North Korea’s founding ruler Kim Il Sung passed away, consumers in the South hoarded staples, fearing an outbreak of war.

But that doesn’t appear to be happening this time around. At the Well Being neighborhood market in Seoul, a clerk said nothing changed after news of the death of Kim Jong Il. Prices are the same and there’s no shortage of goods.

Whenever bad news comes out of North Korea, like when it tested a nuclear device in 2006, or when it attacked a South Korean island last year, the stock market in the South reacts. Lim Soo-ho, an analyst at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said South Korea’s KOSPI did drop a few points after the announcement of Kim’s death, but bounced back two days later.

According to Lim, South Korea’s economy has remained virtually unaffected because investors and consumers don’t see North Korea’s transition as a problem.

He added that people here have experienced these types of situations before, like in 1994. They’ve learned from them; any bad situation has always gone back to normal.

Lim said it also helps that the South Korean government isn’t provoking North Korea, like it did with a military build up in 1994.

Seoul’s expat business community didn’t flinch either, according to Tom Coyner, president of Soft Landing Consulting. He said the shock could have been greater if investors hadn’t seen this one coming.

“Korea seems to be a country that operates on a crisis du jour basis, so we have Kim Jong Il dying, but that’s not a big unexpected event. We knew he was in poor health and the business environment is taking it in stride,” Coyner said.

But Coyner said that given that we still don’t know a lot about the son, Kim Jong Un, investors and other business leaders will have to wait and see how things play out once he officially takes over.

Still, some observers see opportunity in Kim Jong Un’s rise to power.

Hank Ahn, a commissioner at KOTRA, a trade and investments agency, said the younger Kim’s exposure to the West during his school years in Switzerland could mean he’s open to doing business with the outside world — and that’s something South Korea could cash in on.

“It’s quite natural we can assume that North Korea will eventually open up its economy to the outside world,” Ahn said. “So it’s better for us, we can reduce our unification costs when the two countries are reunified, even if we don’t know when. And besides, we can export our products to North Korea as well.”

But Kim Jong Un might have more immediate concerns on his mind.

He’s preparing for his father’s funeral on Wednesday. So improving North Korea’s economy may have to wait.

View the original article here