Rep. Kim Goes for Protection of SME Vendors in Price Talks and Conflict Settlement
The legislator proposes reform in systems governing those areas for the sake of SMEs taking up 99.9 pct of business firms and 87.7 pct of employment
_김을동 의원.jpg)
Rep. Kim Eul-dong of the ruling Saenuri Party
Rep. Kim Eul-dong of the ruling Saenuri Party called for legislative action on the protection of the rights for the vendors, especially, SMEs by amending the laws dealing with the conflicts involving large firms and vendors and the negotiations on the prices of the goods and services provided by the SME vendors to make them more fair.
Rep. Kim said SMEs take up 99.9 percent of all the business firms in Korea while employing 87.7 percent of the work force, undoubtedly a major artery of the Korean economy. We have to root out unfair practices for SME vendors in order to reform our economy to further boost its growth. Therefore, she said various laws and regulations ensuring fair practices between large firms and SME vendors should be reformed to protect SME vendors. She said such laws on the settlement of conflicts between the large firms and SME vendors and the negotiations on the prices of goods and services provided by SME vendors should be reformed to ensure fair deals between the large firms and the vendors.
The legislator representing the Songpa Ward-C in Seoul, said if the legislative proposals on the laws governing the reform on the rights of the SME vendors should spur the conflict settlement and the negotiation on the prices of goods and services provided by SME vendors and she hoped that the National Assembly would act on them as soon as possible.
Rep. Kim went on to note that the improvement of the unfair practices between large firms and their SME vendors are the things that must be carried out for the sake of the reform of our economy and its further growth and she will continue to lend her ears to listen to what’s going on in the SME community to catch the faults in the systems that need changes. She will change her legislative activities to realize what she has been planning to do in the days ahead.
The following are the major contents in the reform of the laws governing the rights of the vendors that the legislator proposed for parliamentary approval:
1. The protection of SMEs rights by boosting the effectiveness of the conflict settlement for SME vendors. The proposed reform requires the large firms to present the details of their readjustment moves made and results to the National Assembly to ensure that the reformed laws on the conflict settlement is practiced as called for in the reform of the laws governing the conflict settlement. The Fair Committee will not issue an order to readjust the measures taken by the large firms, but act only when their actions went against the reformed laws.
2. The extension of the conflict settlement period.
The period for conflict settlement should be extended with new kinds of conflicts developing requiring longer time to solve when the agreement is reached between the parties involved with the maximum extension period allowed up to 90 days from the current 60 days.
3. The negotiations on the prices of goods and services provided by SME vendors.
The proposal for reform calls for extending the negotiation period up to 20 days with the concerned parties submitting their disagreement to the Medium and Small Enterprise Cooperatives within seven days from the start of disagreement.
By Chung Sook Oh.
