Lecture on the history of Korea's shipbuilding industry tonight

Tonight, Tuesday September 30, Peter Bartholomew will be giving a lecture titled "How Korea became the world's most important shipbuilding .nation" for the Royal Asiatic Society:

This lecture will describe the amazing development, from almost “zero,” of Korea’s shipbuilding industry and how it developed into the most efficient, advanced and competitive shipbuilding nation in the world. This development is largely overlooked by most observers of Korean economy, but is an exceptional example of how creativity combined with government support and strong work ethic can achieve remarkable results.

Up to the mid 1970’s Korea’s shipbuilding consisted of one medium class yard in Pusan producing small ocean going cargo ships and numerous small yards building fishing boats and coastal ferries, all using techniques reliant on cheap labour and very basic equipment, ending up with ships and boats of very low quality and questionable safety!

Korean Government central planning, creativity of the corporations involved and the input of state-of-the-art European shipbuilding techniques then leap-frogged Korea’s shipbuilding forward to become the world’s leading shipbuilding country is less than 20 years in all aspects: technology, quality, reliable delivery, size / scale and price competitiveness.

The speaker, Peter Bartholomew, has lived in Korea for 47 years and starting working in shipbuilding & shipping industries from the early 1970’s. He was integrally involved with shipbuilding developments of the Hyundai~Ulsan, Daewoo~Okpo and STX~Jinhae shipyards and thus able to provide truly "insider" insights into this remarkable success story.

I'm definitely looking forward to this lecture, since I know Peter (and know him to be a great storyteller), but haven't ever heard him talk much about this aspect of his life. The lecture will be held at 7:30 pm tonight (Tuesday) in the Residents' Lounge on the 2nd floor of the Somerset Palace in Seoul, which is behind Jogyesa Temple, and is 7,000 won for non-members and free for members. More information can be found here.