Events
South Korea’s Steel Miracle: A Model for Iran’s Industrial Reconstruction
The Iran–South Korea Chamber of Commerce, within the framework of a mission to transfer successful international experiences in industrial development and reconstruction, has prepared an analytical-practical report on South Korea’s experience in the steel industry. Given the damage to the country’s industrial infrastructure following the recent regional tensions and its impact on employment and trade, the report has been prepared as a model for reconstruction and for increasing economic resilience.
In the 1960s, when South Korea’s leaders announced their intention to build an integrated steel mill, the international community ridiculed the decision and the World Bank rejected their loan request. Economic experts also advised Korea to work in light industries such as textiles and fisheries. Despite lacking raw materials such as iron ore and coal, the country today, with annual production of 63.5 million tons of steel, is the world’s sixth-largest producer, and POSCO has grown from a state-owned company into a global industrial empire supplying advanced steels to the automotive, shipbuilding and construction industries around the world.
According to the report, South Korea’s steel industry, having passed through the stages of building domestic capacity, developing exports and moving toward advanced technologies, now operates at new frontiers such as hydrogen-based green steel (with a target of producing 7 million tons by 2030) and smart manufacturing using artificial intelligence. For Iran, this experience contains valuable lessons, including turning crisis into opportunity, prioritizing the development of specialized human resources, long-term planning that extends beyond government terms, and moving toward specialty, high-value-added steels. The report also stresses the need to view steel not merely as a product but as a job-creating ecosystem (generating hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs) and as a foundation for the development of other industries.