SEOUL, KOREA – Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (www.kats.go.kr) is bolstering its international standardization activities in an attempt to have Korea ranked seventh in the world by 2015 in terms of global standardization.
"To keep up with Korea's high status on the global stage, such as being ninth in the trade volume and seventh in exports in the world, KATS will go all-out to enable the nation to become one of the world’s leaders in global standardization activities," Seo Kwang-hyun, administrator of KATS, said.
Korea, which started its international standardization activities in the 1990s, reinforced such activities in earnest in the 2000s. Thanks to such strenuous efforts, Korea was ranked 10th in the world in terms of global standardization activities in 2012.
"In line with this, KATS will actively support enterprises' technology innovation drive and pursue creation of future-oriented standard infrastructure," he said.
At present, KATS is operating a state standard coordinator system consisting of private experts in the seven fields, including smart grid, smart logistics, smart medical information, smart media, 3D industry, cloud computing, and printing electronics.
The system itself is designed to link various convergence technologies developed through state-invested R&D projects with standardization after effectively considering market demand. "KATS will secure expertise about standardization through the state standard coordinator system and effectively push for development of global standards related to state tasks” Seo stated.
"Along with this, we will exert our best efforts to locate and foster global standard experts," he said, adding that Korea produced a total of 122 international executives at International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and IEC technology committee last year, including 16 chairmen, 22 managers, 77 conveners, and seven group leaders, leading the global standardization activities.
The KATS head further said, "We will strengthen our supports for domestic standard experts to increase the number of executives at the ISO and IEC technology committee. In particular, we will map out projects to boost global standardization activities by experts in small and medium-sized enterprises armed with original technology."
International Standards Infrastructure Cooperative Program
"Finally, KATS will strengthen the International Standards Infrastructure Cooperative Program(ISCP) project with newly emerging countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America," Seo added.
Under the ISCP project, KATS is pushing ahead with joint cooperation projects with newly emerging markets through education and supply of Korea's global standard-related contents.
"If Korea bolsters its position in the global society as a leader of international standardization through this project, we can raise the possibility of Korea's acquisition of a permanent membership on ISO in the near future," said the administrator.
"To gain a hold in the global market, it is urgent to create a corporate-led global standardization ecosystem. Out of 101 global standards that have adopted Korean technology, only 13 are those suggested by Korean companies. Accordingly, it is very important to create an environment to standardize technologies developed by enterprises," he said.
"Related to this, KATS will newly establish or expand projects for global standardization of technologies developed by large and smaller companies," said Seo.
In 2012, the government plans to invest a total of 16 trillion won in R&D projects. Of the total budget, 30.5 billion won, or a mere 0.2 percent will be used for standard development.
"It indicates that Korea still falls far behind the U.S. and Japan, which set aside 1.038 trillion won or 0.7 percent of the total R&D budget and 258 billion won or 0.5 percent, respectively. Considering this, KATS will carry out a variety of projects to improve standard technology power," the administrator said.
KATS, which spent 201.1 billion won on standard development from 1996-2011, plans to set aside 22.5 billion won out of their budget for the forthcoming project.
"KATS is exerting its best efforts to improve the nation's standard technology power through establishment of state standard system, strengthening of independent standardization ability, standard study development and implementation, and spread of standards," he said.
Era of knowledge economy
Commenting that the era of knowledge economy has arrived, Seo said, "The change of the name from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy reflects the government's firm will to actively foster knowledge and service industries, away from the past manufacturing-centered policy."
Noting that patents and standards are representing the knowledge industry, he said, "KATS is in charge of standard certification. Although Korea ranks 10th in the world in the cases of global standardization, Korea still falls behind advanced countries in terms of qualitative growth and sales.
"As a result, standardization projects should be supported from the dimension of the government. In line with this, KATS has established a vision of enabling Korea to enter the ranks of the world's top seven in standard technology development. For this purpose, we have mapped out the three access plans," he said.
"First of all, we will strengthen the standard R&D linkage function next year. We will also revise relevant laws and regulations for Korea's entry into the world's top seven by 2015," he stressed.
"Secondly, KATS plans to establish a standardization control tower from the level of government. In many cases, KS certifications and standards compulsorily required by each ministry are in discord because of different standards. We will correlate KS certifications with the ministries' standards through operation of the standardization control tower," said Seo.
KATS plans to carry out screening on regulation reforms in case of enacting compulsory standards next year as a means of reducing confusion stemming from the discord, and preventing people and enterprises from shouldering this double burden.
"Thirdly, we are moving to enact a law to foster the test certification industry. In fact, Korea's test certification service still remains at a low level compared with advanced countries. As a result, foreign test certification service providers are dominating the domestic test certification service market, standing at 3 trillion won," he said.
Stressing that Korea should secure domestically developed origin technologies to promote exports, he said, "The core of origin technologies is standards. And we should secure global standards through development of origin technologies.”
Cooperation with international organizations
"To secure global standards, international cooperation is also very important. Related to this, KATS is bolstering its cooperation with international organizations, especially ISO, ICE and ITU, to export domestic technology and increase the nation's royalty revenues," said the administrator.
Along with this, KATS is actively engaging in regional standardization activities in linkage with standardization organizations in Africa, the Middle East, South America, North America, and developing countries.
"For instance, we have been inviting public servants and research center officials in developing countries to Korea and carrying out relevant education and factory tour programs. KATS has also dispatched standard experts to some countries, including Peru, to help them understand standard-related law systems and prepare proper standards," he noted.
KATS was established in 1883 as an analysis test center in charge of producing currencies, including coins, as well as analyzing, processing, and refining metallic mineral. KATS, which now deals with such businesses as state standards, safe management and quality control of industrial products, legal measurement of industrial goods, and technology appraisal and certification of new products, consists of the four bureaus - the technology standard policy bureau, the product safety policy bureau, the knowledge industrial standard bureau and the appropriateness policy bureau - and 19 divisions.
