Energy Saving Becomes a Strategy: South Korea Promotes LED Lighting Industry Development

　　South Korea's scarcity of resources has made energy conservation one of the country's national strategies, and the LED industry, which holds significant importance for energy conservation and environmental protection, has received great attention from the Korean government. On July 16, South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that the country will permanently stop importing and manufacturing incandescent light bulbs with low energy-saving efficiency starting January 1, 2014.

　　Encouraged by the policies, South Korea's LED lighting industry has developed rapidly. The POSCO Group, headed by a major steel manufacturer, as well as the SK Group, which has advantages in petroleum refining and telecommunications, have also announced plans to enter this market. Through large-scale investments by major corporations, South Korea quickly rose to second place globally in upstream supply chain areas such as LED chip manufacturing.

A building in South Korea that has replaced its lighting with LEDs

　　The ultimate large enterprise groups have not only become the main entities of production and operation and the backbone of foreign trade, but also the core force in technology development, foreign investment introduction, and information collection. There are approximately 900 enterprises engaged in the LED lighting business in South Korea. Samsung Electronics (LED lighting belongs to the Home Appliance Division), LG Innotech, Seoul Semiconductor and three other world-class manufacturers have entered the top five of the global LED revenue rankings. South Korea's next goal is to strive for the top position in the global LED industry by 2020.

　　In order to achieve the popularization of LED lighting from the source, South Korea made the decision to gradually phase out incandescent light bulbs as early as 2008. At present, there are still approximately 30 million incandescent light bulbs in use in South Korea, with great energy-saving potential, which also prompts South Korea to accelerate the replacement of energy-saving LED lighting products. It is reported that approximately 99% of the incandescent light bulbs used in about 8,000 public buildings in South Korea will be replaced.