Daewoo expanded into the construction sector, helping a development program for rural Korea, the new village movement. The corporation also capitalized on the burgeoning African and Middle Eastern markets. Daewoo was given its GTC designation at this time. Major investment help was provided by the government of South Korea to the company in the form of subsidized loans. The strict import controls of South Korea angered competing countries, but the government knew that, unaided, the chaebols will never endure the global recession caused by the 1970's oil crisis. Protectionist policies were essential to ensure that the economy continued to grow.
Daewoo's move into shipbuilding was required by the government, even though Kim felt that Samsung and Hyundai had greater skill in heavy engineering and was more suited to shipbuilding than Daewoo. Kim did not want to take responsibility for the largest dockyard in the world, at Okpo. He said numerous times that the government of Korea was stifling his entrepreneurial instinct by forcing him to undertake actions based on duty instead of earnings. Despite his reluctance, Kim was able to turn Daewoo Shipbuilding and Heavy Machinery into a very successful company producing oil rigs and ships which are competitively priced on a tight production schedule. This took place during the 1980s when the economy in South Korea was going through a liberalization stage.
In 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 crucial textile companies, and its shipbuilding industry faced stiffer competition from abroad. The government's goal 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 worldwide dealings. Nonetheless, the new economic conditions caused some chaebols to fail. The Kukje Group, one of the competitors of Daewoo, went into bankruptcy in 1985. The shift of government favour to small private companies was meant to spread the wealth which had before been concentrated within Pusan and Seoul, Korea's industrial centers.