[Hanil Competitiveness] Technology Gap Between Two Countries Narrows to 0.4 Years... Japan Leads 85% of Core Technologies

The relative technology gap between Korea and Japan has narrowed to 0.4 years, roughly halving over the past two years. In particular, Korea has closely pursued Japan in the fields of autonomous vehicles and electric hydrogen vehicles, which are recognized as future core technologies, reducing the gap between the two countries to 0.2 years. On the other hand, among the 10 ‘industrial technology research and development (R&D) core areas’ designated by the government to strengthen future competitiveness, Korea still lags behind Japan in 8 fields.

According to the ‘2021 Industrial Technology Level Survey’ report obtained by Asia Economy from the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on the 31st, Korea’s technology level compared to the leading technology country (U.S. 100 basis) was 86.7%, up 3.6 percentage points from 83.6% in 2019. Japan’s level decreased by 2.2 percentage points from 93.4% to 91.2% during the same period. As a result, the technology level gap between the two countries decreased from 9.8 percentage points to 4.5 percentage points. The technology gap period compared to the leading technology country was 0.8 years for Korea and 0.4 years for Japan, marking the largest reduction between the two countries since the survey began 10 years ago. Previously, the Korea-Japan technology gap was 1.0 years in 2013, widened to 1.2 years in 2015, then decreased to 1.1 years in 2017 and 0.78 years in 2019.

Korea holds the top technology in the ‘future-type display’ field, while Japan leads in ‘electric hydrogen vehicles’ and ‘secondary batteries.’ This survey targeted 19 major fields excluding design and energy sectors among the government’s 25 core industrial technology R&D areas. Korea’s technology level surpasses Japan’s in three fields (15.7%): eco-friendly smart shipbuilding and marine plants (0.1 years), future-type displays (0.1 years), and knowledge services (0.1 years). Conversely, Japan maintains technological superiority over Korea in 16 fields (84.2%), including next-generation aviation (0.8 years), advanced materials (0.8 years), intelligent robots (0.7 years), and secondary batteries (0.5 years).

Meanwhile, the total number of top technologies held by Korea (based on 254 medium classifications) was 19, an increase of 13 from 6 in 2019.