In these domains, accordingly, there is strong opposition to further opening of the domestic market in these sectors. The government, however, advised by technical experts and supported by most businesses, has launched rigorous programs for opening the economy, including a planned reduction of tariffs on manufactured goods to the level of the advanced economies by 1998, and a complete elimination of import restrictions in manufacturing. In the service sector, rigorous financial reforms and liberalization of interest-rate policies, foreign exchanges, and capital markets will be carried out. In a few years, Korean businesses and individual entrepreneurs will have complete freedom to invest abroad, and foreigners will have the same freedom to invest in Korea. The government played an important role in Korea's economic take-off in the 1960s and 1970s.
Some eminent economists describe Korea's success as government-led growth.
Since the early 1980s, however, the government has gradually liberalized the economy. In the next decade, accelerated liberalization will become inevitable as a means of coping with the coming age of globalization. Continued economic success and rising optimism about the economic future seemed to elevate people's expectations for greater economic welfare and for political and social gains, as has been revealed in recent labor disputes. I would simply suggest here that Korea will quickly learn the importance of cooperation through information-sharing. In contrast to the Anglo-Saxon cultural emphasis on the economic interests of individuals, the importance of communal welfare and cooperation is deeply rooted in Korea's cultural heritage.