For some time, the U.S. government has successively announced a package of policies aimed at addressing the vulnerabilities of the supply chain in key areas and encouraging manufacturing to return to the United States to ensure national economic security. In this regard, the Korea Economic Research Institute (Korea Economic Research Institute) pointed out in the latest report that the United States continues to reshape the global supply chain, which may cause a serious blow to the Korean electric vehicle (EV) battery and pharmaceutical industries that rely heavily on Chinese raw materials. .

Specifically for EV batteries, South Korean EV battery manufacturers accounted for 36.5% of the global EV battery market last year, and it is expected that their market share in the United States will continue to increase in 2022 and 2023. However, as the epidemic becomes more normalized, global concerns about supply chain cuts continue to rise.

According to BusinessKorea, the Korea Institute of Economic Research pointed out that “the problem is that they (Korea EV battery manufacturers) rely too much on China’s lithium hydroxide, cobalt oxide, nickel sulfate, and manganese sulfate.” These are important raw materials for preparing EV batteries. The agency even claimed that “China is weaponizing basic raw materials, which increases the risk of South Korean companies,” and used this to issue a warning.

When it comes to the semiconductor industry, the study said that the United States, Europe, and Japan occupy a dominant position in the field of equipment and materials, and China’s influence may remain at a relatively low level.

Last year, applied materials revenue accounted for 17.7% of the total global semiconductor equipment market, followed by ASML (16.7%), Lam Research (12.9%), Tokyo Electronics (12.3%) and KLA (5.9%). In the semiconductor materials market, the shares of Japanese, American, Korean and Chinese companies are 24%, 19%, 7%, and 1%, respectively. Although China occupies a leading position in the global supply chain of key products such as raw materials and batteries, there is still a certain gap between China and foreign countries in the field of semiconductor manufacturing and supporting equipment and materials, and there is huge room for localization.