Before reading
I’m an engineering student who wants to make science and technology more accessible and understandable for everyone. So I decided to make blog posts about my classes , projects, and research in order to teach whatever I learn in class and learn back from the community. This post consists of a 3 part series on a small research I did for a class that prepared me on how to write academic papers. The main topic is about how not only it is possible but necessary to create technology in my home country, Perú.
Introduction
In 2019, South Korea reached a GDP value of approximately 1.67 trillion dollars [1]. The economic growth since the 60’ has been on average 7.3%. South Korea is a key partner in the World Bank and a contributor to the International Association for Development; an association that helps third world countries and developing nations [2]. In addition they are one of the biggest technology manufacturers in the world. In 2017, sales from technology exports reached $ 130 billion dollars making it the 5th biggest export of technology in the world [3].
However, South Korea didn’t always have the economic growth that we see today. In the 1950’s the Korean War left 217,000 dead soldiers and over 1 million civilian casualties. The economy was in ruins and the income per capita was less than $100 [4,5]. The country vastly depended on international donations [5]. By the 1960, the government made changes and investments in agriculture which contributed to a slow but much needed growth [5,6]. In the following years these investments and policies to help business growth were allowing the country to better their economy and quality of life, eventually there were even policies that incentivized businesses to innovate [5]. These changes eventually led to a prominent economic growth and the number of businesses and companies also rose.
It’s true that Peru has had a different political and historical trajectory, however there’s not only a hope that Peru can one day become a big tech exporter but it will become a necessity in the future to produce and export technology. One big advantage is the huge diversity and massive amounts of resources that we have. But all of this means very little if these resources are not processed into a product. In September of 2018, during a visit to the “Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú” (PUCP) , the German professor Rolf Grieseler, PhD in materials science, commented “ Perú has a huge potential, but raw materials don’t give us much revenue, it has much more value if it’s processed and there are examples like in China; 50 years ago they only extracted raw materials, but they realized that it wasn’t the way to support so many people. So they decided to produce technology and refine the materials, this can also happen in Peru” [7].
To provide a bit more of perspective, we can corroborate the previous claim with a comparison that the historian Yuval Noah Harari describes in his book “Homo Deus”. In 1998, Ruanda raided coltan mines in the Republic of Congo, which contained over 80% of the world’s deposits of coltan. This resulted in an income of $240 millions annually.
On another note, thanks to investments and deals made with Google and Apple, China made in one day what Ruanda made in a year [8]. This is why Developing and Investing in technology is necessary for Peru. Extraction and Exporting goods is not enough for sustainable economic growth. Policies that incentivize innovation are needed to generate growth.
Conclusion of part I
In this small part we saw the introduction to the topic and a bit of background information in order to have an idea of what is needed in Peru and what is possible. In the two following parts I’ll be mentioning several examples in the past and present of how technology can be produced in Peru.
References
[1] H. Pletcher, South Korea: Gross domestic product (GDP) in current prices from 1984 to 2021. Statista, 2020. Disponible en: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263579/gross-domestic-product-gdpin-south-korea/
[2] Banco Mundial. The World Bank In the Republic of Korea, 2020. Disponible en: https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/korea/overview
[3] J. Dilinger, Global High Tech Exports By Country. World Atlas, 2017. Disponible en : https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-themost-high-tech-exports.html
[4] CNN, Korean War Fast Facts, 2020. Disponible en: https://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/28/world/asia/korean-war-fastfacts/index.html
[5] A.M. Santacreu y H. Zhu How Did South Korea’s Economy Develop So Quickly?. Federal Reserve Bank of ST. Louis, 2018. Disponible en: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2018/march/howsouth-korea-economy-develop-quickly
[6] K. Oh, Korea’s Path from Poverty to Philanthropy, Brookings, 2010 Disponible en : https://www.brookings.edu/articles/koreas-path-frompoverty-to-philanthropy/
[7] M. De la Vega, Peru tiene un potencial muy alto para industrializarse, Andina, 2018. Disponible en: https://andina.pe/agencia/noticia-perutiene-un-potencial-muy-alto-para-industrializarse-725152.aspx
[8] Y. Harari, Homo Deus: Breve historia del manana. Harvill Secker, 2015 ˜ pp 26–27
