Chairman Park Yong-maan of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) said he felt that many legislators of the 20th National Assembly he met had a good grasp of the key issues facing the nation, whether they were among the opposition or ruling parties.
He made the statement at the opening of the 41st KCCI Summer Forum held at Lotte Hotel in Seoguipo City, Jeju Island, on July 20. The KCCI chairman said that he was able to find the possibility for changes while he was trying to widen his communication with the persons responsible for the nation’s policies. Park took time to call on important leaders in the 20th National Assembly, which opened on May 31, to get to know them better. That includes leaders of the four political parties, especially chairmen of the committees dealing with economic legislative matters, ask for their cooperation in reviving the economy.
Park stressed that the business community should expand its communication with the legislative branch to speed up changes that should be made to spur economic growth. “We have to change the means of communication with the parliamentary leaders to shake off misunderstanding, worries, suspicions and mistrust, among others, to seek the means to speed up the changes that are needed to reshape the situation we are in,” he said. The KCCI chairman also expressed his concern over the legislation of laws to regulate business activities, including laws that are hard to find in foreign countries, to think about the usefulness and necessity of those laws.
He called on the legislators to take action in lifting laws and regulations that restrict business activities in a daring manner.
The chairman unveiled three ways to achieve the sustainable growth of the economy: growth, communication and system.
The Korean economy sustained growth for the past 50 years, but economic growth is not the be all and end all when it comes to economic and societal maturity. He said the country should consider factors other than growth, as we have been too engrossed with numbers and speed if development in the past half century. “We ought to check the quality of economic growth now to see if we can solve various social problems associated with the too much emphasis on economic growth,” the KCCI chairman expounded. Park said Korea needs intangible assets such as “trust” and “team work.” He continued that adhering to laws is not enough: “We, the business people, should create the laws and regulations by ourselves and adhere to them voluntarily with redoubled efforts to do things right,” he said.
A number of renowned scholars and experts spoke on the Korean economy, including ways to sustain future growth. Minister Joo Hyung-whan of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy also spoke at the forum on the nation’s exports.
South Korea’s trade minister forecasted the country’s exports to return to a surplus in the second half of this year and called for changes to the country’s core export items to regain competitiveness in the global market.
“After (Korea’s) outbound shipments declined 8 percent in 2015, deficits grew to 20 percent in January. But in June, losses narrowed to 2.7 percent,” the country’s Trade Minister Joo Hyung-hwan said on July 27 at the KCCI annual summer forum. He cited weakening competitiveness of the country’s key export products as the major reason behind the recent fall in the country’s exports, on top of the slow global economy and other structural factors.
“We should make the (recent slowdown in trade) as a chance to fundamentally change the country’s export strategy,” including core export products, target markets, operating entities and supporting system, said Joo, recommending to focus more on other lucrative items such as system memory chips and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, as well as consumer goods and service from the current intermediary and capital goods.
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