The heads of five private economic organizations including the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) met and agreed that they should come up with measures to cope with the current deterioration in the business environment due to talks on economic democratization in the political sector amid the slowdown in the world economy.

The participants included Chairman Han Duck-soo of the Korea International Trade Association, Chairman Sohn Kyung-shik of the KCCI, Chairman Huh Chang-soo of the FKI, Chairman Kim Ki-moon of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, and Chairman Lee Hee-beom of the Korea Employer’ s Association.

After a lengthy discussion, they finally agreed to set up a special economic revival committee to come up with various measures to rekindle the economy, deciding that the current crisis cannot be left to take its toll on the Korean economy unchecked.

The meeting focused its agenda on drawing up ideas to revive the economy in support of the meeting they attended at Cheong Wa Dae, the Presidential mansion, at the end of July and recommend them to the government.

During the meeting, the heads of the five big economic organizations decided to announce 97 economic areas that need to be taken care of including investment, consumption, exports, and real estate, and 15 measures that should be implemented for the resurgence of the economy. These strategies were presented to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF).

The recommended measures included building more plants inside the industrial estates opened during the 1960s and 1970s; increasing the tax exemption rates for SMEs; suppressing further increases in corporate tax and power rates; and increasing financial support for exporters.

The outstanding feature that came out of the meeting is the launch of a special committee for economic revival, which will be jointly chaired by the five heads of the economic organizations. The committee will check up on investment and employment during the second half and work to solve various problems in investment activities and exports.

They plan to hold the first committee meeting in the middle of next month and invite the MKE, MOSF, and labor ministers to the meeting and discuss with them measures to revive the economy. They first thought of inviting the political parties to the meeting, but recanted on fears that they will bring up economic democracy.

The top business leaders swore to do their utmost to fire up the economy including investments, creation of jobs, and the addressing of other pertinent problems.

They have decided to see that plans for investments and employment proceed as initially set and stay away from restructuring during the economic slowdown in the second half.

During the remainder of the year, the Samsung Group plans to hire 12,400 new employees, LG Group 7,700, and the other conglomerates in the top 10 plan to hire an additional 42,950 new employees.