Gyeongsangnam-do
Gyeongsangnam-do shows industrial mutualism: Geoje's shipyards (33% of workforce) secured $34.5B in 2025 orders while expanding to U.S. Navy maintenance and 43% of Korea's aerospace production.
Gyeongsangnam-do represents industrial mutualism at global scale—where Korean shipbuilding prowess meets U.S. naval maintenance needs. Geoje Island hosts two of the world's largest shipyards: Samsung Heavy Industries (established 1974) and Hanwha Ocean's Okpo facility. This concentration is so extreme that 33% of Geoje's workforce depends on shipbuilding, a monoculture vulnerability the province manages through aerospace diversification.
The aerospace strategy builds on existing heavy-industry infrastructure. The province produces 43% of Korea's space industry output, hosting Korea Aerospace Industries and Hanwha Aerospace across 125 industrial complexes. The National Aerospace Industrial Complex, targeting June 2025 completion, aims to transform Changwon (the provincial capital) from shipbuilding's administrative center into dual-purpose industrial command. Governor Park has pushed KAI to expand from military contracts into civilian aircraft—adaptive radiation from defense specialization.
The most significant recent development is mutualistic defense cooperation. In March 2025, the USNS Wally Schirra completed a six-month overhaul at Hanwha Ocean in Gyeongsangnam-do—part of a strategy to handle maintenance for 11 U.S. Navy vessels annually using the province's 1,000+ supplier network. Korean shipbuilders met their 2025 order targets despite global downturns: HD Korea Shipbuilding secured $18.1 billion, Hanwha Ocean $9.8 billion, Samsung Heavy Industries $6.6 billion. With U.S. LNG projects and the 'Make American Shipbuilding Great Again' initiative projected to drive 24% growth in LNG carrier orders for 2026, the province's industrial ecosystem positions it as an indispensable node in global maritime supply chains.