There is the so-called ‘blank period of statistics’ from 1940/1941 when the
government stopped publishing official statistics to 1953 which was the starting
year of the first National Income estimation of the Bank of Korea(BOK). This
paper assembled documents and data and estimated the mining and
manufacturing product by items of that period and linked it with the previous
and post series to result in long-term series. Mining product was up and down
before liberation and stagnated during 1st half of 1940s while manufacturing
product decreased after having peaked at 1941. The product of both mining
and manufacturing was increasing to 1949 after great decrease on liberation,
The product restarted increase after Korean war’s interruption and the time
when the product reached the supreme level of colonial period was 1956 in
manufacturing and 1959 in mining. In manufacturing, the share of both food,
beverage, and tobacco industry and fiber, clothing, leather, and shoes
industry was 70% and decreased to 60% of manufacturing product and
continued it after liberation. Being indebted by the development of gold mine,
the share of metal mining was 80% of mining product in 1930s, while the
share of coal mining increased finally to reach above 50% of mining product
after liberation.