The World Bank(WB) presented a strategy to avoid the middle-income trap, which is when a country fails to become a high-income country and its growth stagnates, mentioning South Korea as a representative success case.

According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance on Thursday, the WB released its 2024 World Development Report recommending ways to avoid the middle-income trap using the 'i's'.

The WB says that low-income countries should focus on the '1i' policy by increasing 'investment', while lower-middle-income countries must utilize the '2i' policy of 'investment' and 'infusion' by introducing foreign technology, and upper-middle-income countries need to consider the '3i' policy of 'investment', 'infusion' and 'innovation'.

Introducing South Korea as a representative example of an upper-middle-income country that successfully implemented the '3i' policy, the WB said the country opened the financial market, attracted foreign capital, expanded infrastructure investment and increased productivity through investment in research and development as well as education.

The report further explained that South Korea turned the crisis into an opportunity by comprehensively reforming finance and conglomerates following the 1997 foreign exchange crisis.