The specialty chemical
industry uses raw materials from basic industries such
as oil refinery, petrochemical, fertilizer and iron
& steel in order to provide specialty chemical materials
for the automobile, shipbuilding, textile, electronics
and chemical industries. It is an intermediate material
industry producing small quantity/large various items
which requires high-tech quality technology and which
has multi-purpose special applications. The specialty
chemical industry is a high-tech industry with value-added
as well as an environmentally aware and resources conversation
industry. The specialty chemical industry is part of
the main chemical industry which is playing a decisive
and major role in enhancing competitiveness in the related
industries, which will suffer greatly without further
technology reforms and innovations in the competitive
international market as there are increasing demands
in the current world market for environmental awareness.
As the specialty chemical industry manufactures items
that require various high-tech complicated processes
and consists of special purpose products without any
consistency and similarity of related technologies,
it is very difficult to develop new items on our own
without obtaining the related technology of certain
standards and requires enormous research and development
expenses and long term investment while the product
life-cycle is short.
Therefore, the market is controlled
by the industrialized nations which have the technology
and capital for research and is monopolized by the industrialized
nations especially in the raw material and intermediate
stages which are the core technology of the specialty
chemical industry. Developing countries merely import
the intermediates and produce end products or attempt
to produce intermediates jointly with the industrialized
nations.
This specialty chemical industry
can produce items for specialized medium size industries
as it can be managed by small scale investment, different
from large equipment installation industries such as
the petrochemical and fertilizer industries. It has
high value-added products compared to the general chemical
products so that there are chances to dominate the whole
international market if the item developments are successful,
and it is very influential in technology expanding effects
into other industries. Therefore, this industry can
be promoted as an international competitive industry
if intensive supportings are provided, and industry
of future prosperity which enables to take initiatives
in international competitiveness provided by the development
environment in a country like Korea with plenty of highly
skilled labour and technology while other natural resources
are scarce. |
