<Anchor>

Even in 2020, Kwon Ae-ri is responsible for the kind economy. Kwon, last year our economy was difficult in many ways, but there are quite a lot of people who are curious about the economic outlook and real estate outlook.

<Reporter>

Yes. First Happy New Year. As I have said many times in the friendly economy, the biggest problems our economy has suffered last year, exports have declined, key industries such as manufacturing are sluggish, so profits are insecure, unstable, The biggest reason is that the external circumstances around us were difficult.

As the US and China fought tariffs on imports from each other, China's exports were not smooth. Therefore, our exports were hurt as China needed less intermediate goods imported from our country.

Moreover, not only in China but also in the world, the semiconductor market was not good. It was hard because we are a country that relies on semiconductors for around 20% of our exports.

This means that if these external conditions improve this year, a more favorable environment can be created for us, but there are more hopeful news than last year.

Above all, the US and China decided to make a temporary ceasefire in the trade war. A few days ago, President Trump said the White House signed the first round of US-China agreements.

This will be silent for a while. Then we expect the trade to go down again and we will sigh for a while.

<Anchor>

Also, are you seeing a rebound in the semiconductor market, which has a high proportion of Korean exports?

<Reporter>

Yes. The Bank of Korea has released an index called Corporate Business Due Diligence that shows how businesses are feeling right now. It's still a bit cautious, but our business feels better than a month ago.

This trend is improving for four months now. In particular, semiconductors are getting better and better.

Last year, semiconductor prices dropped a lot worldwide. Then I recently heard, "Uh, stop seeing now?" In other words, the atmosphere has been formed.

Semiconductors have a lot to look for when the economy is good and especially in the high-tech industry, which leads to greater demand and higher prices.

The world economy is not so good yet, but it's good for us that the future industry is getting bigger and bigger.

For example, 5G communications, instant data throughput, and high speed 5G communications are in fact developed not only by us but also by major US and Chinese countries.

I'm trying to preoccupy, and I'm looking for a place to apply, and I need a lot of semiconductors. There are several of these areas.

So, even if the global economy recovers slowly this year or even stagnates, the semiconductor economy will be very hard to turn off. There are many views that this year will be better than last year.

<Anchor>

When I hear from Kwon, I think it's definitely going to be better this year.

<Reporter>

right. In fact, the anxiety factor is everywhere. China, which I keep talking about, has recently had so-called default, bankrupt companies, and banks that are bankrupt.

We hope to see some of these issues resolved when tensions are released, but there are fears that if China's corporate bankruptcy is not resolved this year, it will create a more difficult environment than last year.

The US-China trade war is not over. In particular, 5G technology competition, which is one of the factors that will save the semiconductor industry mentioned above, is very nervous for the US and China.

Do you remember that President Trump raided Huawei with multiple source technologies in Chinese telecommunications company Huawei 5G last year?

"Huawei will be stealing other information with 5G technology." President Trump kept up this problem. It was one of the sharpest conflicts in last year's trade war.

At the bottom is China's conflict with China, which in the end is trying to beat the high-tech industry.

If the war ceases, China will try to expand its 5G dominance again this year. There are times when you want to preempt. It's hard to see America still standing here. The year starts with a more hopeful mood than last year, but there are a number of anxieties.

The Korean economy should learn from the various external instability factors that we experienced last year, and this year should be the year to develop our ability to cope with even a little more efficiently. The task before us is to make our economy a year of real improvement.

<Anchor>

Like semiconductor prices, we expect our economy to bottom out last year.