The domestic production of software(SW) takes 1.1% of total industrial production and 9.8% of IT production. It shows that the competitive power of domestic SW is relatively low in comparison with other countries.

Though the scale of domestic SW market had been grown from $ 4 billion in 2001 to $ 7.8 billion in 2006, it is no more than 1.1% of the scale of world market ($ 709.5 billion), and its country ranking have remained in the fifteenth.

The balance of imports and exports of SW-two hundred and sixty million dollars export and six hundred million dollars import-indicates that it is dependent on imports. It has an even weaker influence on the world trade of SW.

There are various aspects that explain the causes of this low competitive power:

1) The aspect of enterprise's capability: the low technological prowess and small scales of domestic enterprises
2) The aspect of industrial structure: the lack of business continuity due to frequent out-of-business of enterprises
3) The aspect of market opportunity: the limits of language and labor cost suitable for global market
4) The aspect of input: the low rate of R&D investment and the tendency of labor intensive industrialization

To improve the competitive power of domestic SW industry, Korea SW Industry Promotion Agency has investigated export-oriented systems of IT service enterprises and selected the following six strategic fields: Customs Service administration, electronic supply, local administration, license information, post and telegraphic service information, and the port administration of physical distribution. Then, what is the strategy that facilitates to export these six fields?

According to Assemblyman Yeom Dong-Yeon, a member of Science, Technology, Information & Telecommunication Committee at the National Assembly, "as the FTA between Korea and the US reaches an agreement, it will provide opportunities for our SW enterprises. The US has the largest SW market that corresponds to 43% of the world SW market. Utilizing the FTA, we have to devise countermoves in a way of globalizing domestic SW industry."

Nevertheless, one thing is still missing. That is the problem of the lack of manpower in the domestic SW industry. The manpower lacked 6.1% in 2006. It is expected that, from 2007 to 2011, the industry will be caught short of 25,000 high-skilled manpowers, especially SW engineers. The low profitability of SW market has made the decrease of investments for R&D and quality talent, which, in turn, accelerate the exist of high-skilled manpower from the industry. In this respect, it is urgent that training programs for high-skilled manpower be done.