South Korea needs to foster its financial industry as a new growth engine in a bid to brace for the protracted low growth trend amid lingering uncertainties at home and abroad, the nation's top financial regulator said Monday.

"The local financial industry should prepare its own springboard for a new take-off. The industry has opportunity to expand its businesses in the fields of overseas nuclear plant project, city engineering and offshore plant," Financial Service Commission (FSC) Chairman Kim Seok-dong told reporters.

Kim cautioned that global economic difficulties will continue for a considerable period of time due to the prolonged eurozone fiscal crisis and the delayed economic recovery in the United States, saying that the recent U.S. recovery was led by inventory adjustment and fiscal expenditure rather than consumption and investment.

On the domestic front, potential risks remained such as low birth rate, aging population and household debts along with lack of growth engine, the chairman said.

Kim noted that the South Korean economy will stay at the low growth trend on the back of risk factors at home and abroad, saying that the financial industry should find ways to go a step forward.

The Asia's No.4 economy registered the world's fastest economic growth thanks to an active investment on research and development (R&D), according to the book authored by Kim. South Korea's actual GDP surged 34.5 times during the 1960-2011 period, higher than a growth of 6.6 times for the global economy.

The country's DRAM chipmakers ranked first in terms of global market share that reached 65.3 percent as of 2011. Handset, ship and display sectors all ranked first with market share of 31.1 percent, 48.1 percent and 53.8 percent each, with those for automobile and steel industries posting 5.8 percent and 4.1 percent respectively that were at the fifth and sixth places each.

The faster growth in the industries was attributable to active investment into the R&D sector, Kim said, noting that the finance industry failed to grow in line with other industries due to lack of the R&D investment. The chairman recommended that the local financial industry should find opportunities in the overseas market.

The ratio of South Korea's R&D to GDP surged to 3.74 percent in 2010 from 0.6 percent in 1981. The 2010 figure ranked third globally.