South Korea’s technology level improved somewhat from two year ago but is still far behind that of the United States and Japan, a government report showed Monday.

According to the report from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, the level of South Korea‘s 120 key technologies was at 77.8 percent of the United States at the end of last year.

The figure compares with 76.5 percent in 2010 when the level of 95 key technologies was compared with those of the U.S. and three other economies ― the European Union, Japan and China, said the report released Monday.

The technology level of the European Union was at 94.5 percent of the U.S. at the end of 2012 with those of Japan and China coming to 93.4 percent and 67 percent, respectively.

South Korea had no world’s top technology among the 120 key technologies studied, though it had two top technologies among 942 technologies in subcategories, the report said.

“Compared with the outcome of the 2010 study, the gap between the country‘s technology level and those of the U.S., EU and Japan narrowed, but its gap with China also narrowed,” it said.

In comparison with China, South Korea had 29 key technologies that were three to seven years ahead of China with 68 technologies found to be one to three years ahead of those of China.

China, on the other hand, was ahead of South Korea in 13 key technologies, including the one for developing a space launch vehicle. (Yonhap News)