Koreans aren’t as affluent as you suggest. They just pay low taxes, so they have a bit more disposable income than people earning the same salaries in richer countries.

As for the thousands of apartments, it’s a bubble. People buy because at the moment its still a good investment. There’s also the fact that most people just don’t want to live in houses here. Apartments are thought to be safer from burglars. The fact that an increasing number of young people from the countryside are moving to the urban centres (most farmers now are elderly people) has contributed to the bubble.

1. The Korean market for anything foreign is a market for the rich (or wannabe) hence the high tariff on cars, beef, electronics, liquor, you name it but only an FTA will change the tariff but never the perception that foreign goods are not for the common folk. And yes, most of those BMW 750’s and high end Mercedes, Lexus, and Land Rovers are LEASED by Mr. Kim’s business and not bought outright due to the taxman.

2. In general Koreans are so affluent they don’t mind paying double the price for a foreign item (there are still a bunch of people who use cash and have it stashed at home versus in a bank where the government can see it), and the governement is complicit in keeping the price of foreign and Korean goods (rice, cars, beef, artificially high and promote the appeance of scarecity (apartments and land) by instituting reactionary and short term policies to keep GDP high.

How many thousands of apartments have been built in the past five years? Not just in Seoul, but all over the country. You could explain it if everyone had multiple apartments,one for the wife and one for the mistress and one for each child, or is the government really just planning for reunification and building excess capacity to house the hordes of nK’s who will move south.

Certainly, that and Koreans seem to think that duty on imported cars is high (it really isn’t).

I always laugh I see someone driving a Chrysler Sebring or a 300 here knowing they must have paid upwards of 35 million won for those. Sebrings go for about 14 000$ and 300s for about 24 000$ in Canada. They can’t give them away back home, basically. A dealer told my friend that he thought Chrysler missed the boat when they released those cars because babyboomers aren’t buying ‘old men’s cars’.

It’s ridiculous to say the least. I remember the president of Peugeot Korea saying that prices of imports have broken the high price barrier. Out of curiosity I looked up the prices of Peugeot models and their cheapest and smallest(compact) model had the same price as a Grandeur. An imported compact with the price of a Grandeur. I have to admire the audacity of the guy saying that the prices are going down while at the same time gouging his own product line.

Wrong thread, I think. This one is about cars.

I remember a time when imported cars were cheaper here than abroad–can’t remember the exact date, but I tink it was in mid to late 1998. Ford and Volvo were almost giving away their cars. I remember seeing new Volvos being sold for about 24 million won and a new Ford Mustang would set you back 17 million won…and that was when a US dollar was worth somewhere between 1200 to 1900 won.

“So then the augment is we must take issue with Hyundai’s dominance in order to keep it dominant against foreigners. Can anybody explain this logic?”

Since South Korea and the US have signed a FTA, I would guess it is much easier (and tempting) for the US to accuse Hyundai of dumping cars. South Korea could have to pay penalties, no?

1. Hyundai has a monopoly
2. Hyundai is rentseeking
3. Hyundai is losing market share to evil foreign cars as a result of high prices, less service, lack of 0% financing, etc.
4. Overall, Korea loses since more cars are built overseas by evil foreigners

To these guys, the answer is for Samsung Renault and GM Daewoo to make more cars (maybe–foreign ownership may be a bugaboo).

The funny thing is, I remember back in the 90s when Korean cars were actually cheaper here than in the U.S. It’s a good case study of why allowing your two biggest carmakers to merge in a protected market is a bad idea.

To play devil’s advocate, I think you may have misintepreted the point of mentioning the growth of import sales and Hyundai’s decline of the domestic market. I took that to mean that because Hyundai is basically gouging its Korean (domestic) customers, more customers are simply choosing to purchase foreign cars.

In other words, if Hyundai/Kia were to sell their cars at a reasonable price, their share of the market would not have declined (as much as it did).