Jung Ji-won, chief executive officer of Korea Securities Finance Corp., was inaugurated on Nov. 3 as the new chairman of the Korea Exchange, the operator of the Kospi and Kosdaq markets.
The Busan-based KRX announced that Jung had become the sole candidate after interviewing him and his contender Choi Bang-gil, former chief executive at Shinhan BNP Paribas Asset Management to explain his selection as KRX chairman.
The new KRX chairman said in his inaugural speech that the capital market should lead its reformed growth, creating jobs and boosting national incomes, and should also direct capital to industrial sectors that are more productive, such as SMEs and start-ups, rather than to the machinery and real estate sectors.
In order to bring that about, the Kosdaq market should play the role of incubator, supplying venture capital with the KRX doing all it can for the growth of the Kosdaq market.
The new CEO said he will take measures to overhaul the support systems for the growth of SMEs and Startups, and will borrow from ideas the Nasdaq market to reform the Kosdaq market, such as the entry process, so reformed companies with great potential can enter the Kosdaq market and grow further.
He said he decided to propose the development of a new index and tax system support for ETFs, among others. He will also press for companies with huge potential to enter the Kosdaq market, along with moves to expand the participation of institutional investors through various means including the new indices for the market that are developed later.
The KRX chairman also said he will do everything in his power to make the capital market a place where people can make their wealth grow, while making the ETF financial products created on the Kosdaq market vitalized and requesting the government come up with the support system needed for tax support systems.
The announcement came about two months after former Chairman Jeong Chan-woo offered to step down from the post on Aug. 17. Jeong left the KRX on Sept. 18, less than a year after he took office, the shortest in the organization’s history.
Jung grew up in Busan and was a career bureaucrat for three decades. He worked at the Finance Ministry and other financial authorities. The 56-year-old has been serving as the chief of Korea Securities Finance Corp., the sole financing institution for securities firms in South Korea, since December 2015.
The new KRX chairman will serve three-year term.
Korea Exchange (KRX) is the sole securities exchange operator in South Korea. It is headquartered in Busan, and has an office for cash markets and market oversight in Seoul.
The Korea Exchange was created through the integration of Korea Stock Exchange, Korea Futures Exchange and KOSDAQ Stock Market under the Korea Stock & Futures Exchange Act. The securities and derivatives markets of former exchanges are now business divisions of Korea Exchange: the Stock Market Division, KOSDAQ Market Division and Derivatives Market Division. As of January 2015, Korea Exchange had 2,030 listed companies with a combined market capitalization of $1.2 trillion. The exchange has normal trading sessions from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on all days of the week except Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.
Since the launch of Korea’s first securities market in 1956, the Korea Exchange has worked its way through challenges to develop the country’s capital market. Today, it is an all-encompassing capital market where 60 trillion won of various investment products, including stocks, bonds and derivatives, are traded on a daily basis.
The story of the Korean capital market, which rose from the ashes of the war to become a successful, well-functioning market, is actually the story of struggle and hard work of all the Korean people, who diligently strived to make a better future by developing their nation’s economy.
_정지원 취임.jpg)
