Korea - Total natural resources rents (% of GDP)

Total natural resources rents (% of GDP) in Korea was 0.099 as of 2019. Its highest value over the past 49 years was 0.785 in 1975, while its lowest value was 0.018 in 1993.

Definition: Total natural resources rents are the sum of oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents (hard and soft), mineral rents, and forest rents.

Source: Estimates based on sources and methods described in "The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium" (World Bank, 2011).

See also:

Year Value
1970 0.169
1971 0.159
1972 0.154
1973 0.401
1974 0.491
1975 0.785
1976 0.571
1977 0.484
1978 0.310
1979 0.267
1980 0.449
1981 0.625
1982 0.630
1983 0.312
1984 0.207
1985 0.253
1986 0.145
1987 0.067
1988 0.118
1989 0.110
1990 0.070
1991 0.038
1992 0.027
1993 0.018
1994 0.018
1995 0.029
1996 0.023
1997 0.021
1998 0.037
1999 0.022
2000 0.020
2001 0.028
2002 0.022
2003 0.026
2004 0.020
2005 0.019
2006 0.020
2007 0.024
2008 0.042
2009 0.036
2010 0.032
2011 0.034
2012 0.046
2013 0.028
2014 0.024
2015 0.018
2016 0.019
2017 0.022
2018 0.022
2019 0.099

Development Relevance: Accounting for the contribution of natural resources to economic output is important in building an analytical framework for sustainable development. In some countries earnings from natural resources, especially from fossil fuels and minerals, account for a sizable share of GDP, and much of these earnings come in the form of economic rents - revenues above the cost of extracting the resources. Natural resources give rise to economic rents because they are not produced. For produced goods and services competitive forces expand supply until economic profits are driven to zero, but natural resources in fixed supply often command returns well in excess of their cost of production. Rents from nonrenewable resources - fossil fuels and minerals - as well as rents from overharvesting of forests indicate the liquidation of a country's capital stock. When countries use such rents to support current consumption rather than to invest in new capital to replace what is being used up, they are, in effect, borrowing against their future.

Limitations and Exceptions: This definition of economic rent differs from that used in the System of National Accounts, where rents are a form of property income, consisting of payments to landowners by a tenant for the use of the land or payments to the owners of subsoil assets by institutional units permitting them to extract subsoil deposits.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The estimates of natural resources rents are calculated as the difference between the price of a commodity and the average cost of producing it. This is done by estimating the world price of units of specific commodities and subtracting estimates of average unit costs of extraction or harvesting costs (including a normal return on capital). These unit rents are then multiplied by the physical quantities countries extract or harvest to determine the rents for each commodity as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Environment Indicators

Sub-Topic: Natural resources contribution to GDP