Daewoo expanded into the construction industry, serving the new village movement, a development program for rural Korea. The corporation also took advantage of the burgeoning African and Middle Eastern markets. Daewoo was given its GTC designation during this time. The government of South Korea offered major investment support to the corporation in the form of subsidized loans. South Korea's strict import controls angered competing countries, but the government knew that, independently, the chaebols would never survive the global recession caused by the oil crisis during the 1970s. Protectionist policies were needed to make certain that the economy continued to grow.
Even though the government felt that Samsung and Hyundai had the greater knowledge in heavy engineering, Daewoo was forced into shipbuilding by the government. Okpo, the biggest dockyard in the world was not a responsibility that Kim was wanting. He stated many times that the government of Korea was stifling his entrepreneurial instinct by forcing him to undertake actions based on duty rather than profit. Despite his unwillingness, Kim was able to turn Daewoo Shipbuilding and Heavy Machinery into a really successful company producing competitively priced ships and oil rigs on a tight production timetable. This took place in the 1980s when the economy within South Korea was going through a liberalization stage.
During this period, the government relaxed its protectionist measures and encouraged the existence of small- and medium-sized companies. Daewoo was forced to rid two of its important textile corporations, and its shipbuilding industry faced stiffer competition from overseas. The objective of the government was to shift to a free market economy by encouraging a more effective allocation of resources. Such a policy was meant to make the chaebols more aggressive in their global dealings. Nonetheless, the new economic climate caused some chaebols to fail. The Kukje Group, one of the competitors of Daewoo, went into liquidation during 1985. The shift of government favour to small private companies was intended to spread the wealth that had before been concentrated in Pusan and Seoul, Korea's industrial centers.