ABSTRACT
Economic growth has been a high priority national goal for both Korean governments. Military preparedness, declining dependence on allies, the leader's continuance in office, and, ultimately, survival as a political entity, all demanded a respectable rate of growth. By 1979 South Korea had moved from a position of almost exclusive dependence on the United States to a complex involvement with the international economic community. Between the 1950s and the 1970s the nature of South Korean dependence on external sources of investment capital and foreign exchange changed radically. During the 1950s and early 1960s the Republic of Korea's (ROK) heavy dependence on economic aid gave the US government substantial leverage on domestic policy. Autarky, as practiced by North Korea, accepted the reality that imports of technology were essential to growth. North Korea's principal exports, the products of mines and heavy industry, were difficult to expand rapidly, and their prices tended to fluctuate widely.
