Films Are the New Stars of Korea's Export

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South Korean exporters | Films Are the New Stars; Ships and steel suffer, but the entertainment industry shines. Economist, Mar 19, 2016.
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... films-are-new-stars

Quote:

"FOR an export juggernaut, South Korea’s recent losing streak is alarming: for 14 straight months [13 for Taiwan] its exports have fallen in value terms compared with a year earlier. In January they plummeted by 18.8% to just under $37 billion—the steepest drop since 2009. Petrochemical products are a key South Korean export, so low global oil prices partly explain the numbers. Still, the country’s longtime engines of growth, including steel mills, shipyards and car plants, appear to be running out of puff. [in part because Japanese yen has depreciated since Abe came to power]"

"Many of its [S Korea's] sprawling conglomerates are built around the smokestack industries * * * with the result that manufacturing accounts for as much as a third of South Korea’s GDP today. * * * One-tenth of their [conglomerates' or chaebol's] offshoots are now unprofitable 'zombie' firms

"Media stocks [in S Korea] have been buoyed recently by the success of CJ E&M, a subsidiary of CJ Corp, another chaebol. The affiliate established itself as an export star with the hit 2013 film, 'A Wedding Invitation' (pictured), made for the Chinese market with Chinese actors but a Korean crew.

Note:
(a) puff (n): "one's breath (esp in the phrase out of puff)"
www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/puff
(b) About quotation 3.
(i) "CJ Corp is a South Korean conglomerate holding company headquartered in Seoul. * * * CJ comes from 'Cheil Jedang,' which can literally mean 'best sugar,' the industry where it originally started. * * * founded as 'Cheil Jedang' [hanja (Korean pronunciation for 漢字): 第一製糖] in August 1953 as a sugar and flour manufacturer"  en.wikipedia.org
(ii) CJ E&M, where E&M stands for "Entertainment and Media."
(iii) A Wedding Invitation  分手合约
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wedding_Invitation
(2013)