Republic of KoreaCountry AnalysisMARK 465 – International MarketingApril 2, 2014Meghan MaloyBasil NikolopoulosXiaoman WuJiacheng ZhuIntroductionThe Republic of Korea, also known as South Korea, is a country occupying the southern part of the Korean peninsula in eastern Asia. Korea's history dates back to 2333 BC, when Gojoseon was founded by Dangun. Based on linguistic evidence, it appears that the Korean population immigrated largely from the Altai Mountains and originally originated in Manchuria, Mongolia, and China (“History before Division,” 2014). In 1945, the northern and southern parts of Korea were occupied by troops of the Soviet Union and the United States respectively, making the country one of the only divided countries in the world ("History after Division" , 2014). The capital of South Korea is Seoul. Current President Park Geun-hye, who is the first female president in Korean history, was elected in 2013. South Korea has a presidential republic system of government. Combined with centralized economic planning and government regulation, its mixed economic system has given this developed country a high standard of living (“Introduction” 2014). Over the past decades, South Korea's economy has achieved a high level of growth. Along with Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, South Korea is a member of the Asian Four Tigers and is the only developed country included in the Next Eleven group (“Economic Statistics” 2014). However, foreign goods and services attempting to enter the Korean market to compete with domestic competition still face several entry barriers due to excessive surveillance by the Korean government. High government tariffs and other means of restriction lead to increased costs.......of average paper......high quality and readily available. There are approximately 30.1 million active trunk lines and 53.625 million mobile lines in operation. Internet use is also in high demand with approximately 39.4 million users (“World Factbook” 2014). South Korea is currently the leading country in terms of Internet speed and recent technological developments will soon make Korean Internet speeds nearly 50 times faster than an average American connection (Neal 2014). Korean media includes several national television networks, with the Seoul Broadcasting Service (SBS) being the largest private network. SBS has an extensive network across all media types, including radio and television (“World Factbook” 2014). Korea's communications network adopts and integrates the latest technologies and this progressive attitude makes it one of the most advanced in the world..