Seoul Buffoon

LH scandal and conflict of interest in public sector

2021-03-30T12:09:00.003+09:00

The latest impropriety to roil the Moon jae-in government pertains to irregularities by Korea Land & Housing Corp. (LH) employees regarding large urban development projects near Seoul.

State-owned LH was established in 2009 as a comprehensive organization responsible for the development, construction, renovation and management of land, housing properties and cities in South Korea. Since then, it has developed residential areas, new towns and industrial complexes, including the inter-Korean Kaesong industrial park in North Korea.

Earlier this month, two civic groups – People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and Lawyers for a Democratic Society -- alleged that LH employees bought land worth about 10 billion won ($8.88 million) in the cities of Gwangmyeong and Siheung in Gyeonggi Province between April 2018 and June 2020, before plans for transformative development projects -- aiming to decentralize Seoul by turning farmland into a self-sufficient town powered by an industrial complex and full infrastructure -- were announced.

Their role in using insider information to snatch precious property before word got out brought into sharp focus the conflict of interest in public sector and effective measures to tackle the issue.

A conflict of interest here involves the public duty and private interest of public officials, in which their private-capacity interest could improperly influence the performance of their official duties and responsibilities.

Since then, the police have raided LH headquarters and other regional offices, but the ensuing commotion has refused to subside. With public mistrust growing before crucial mayoral by-elections in Seoul and Busan on April 7, undermining his continuing attempts to cool the property market, President Moon was forced to issue a public statement.

He encouraged the ruling party to pass a conflict of interest law, noting that “the people are infuriated” and the “unacceptable act destroyed society’s fairness and trust.”

Moon said that although the current anti-graft law, also known as the Kim Young-ran law, paved the way for the country to clean up corruption, and the latest scandal “should serve as an opportunity to create a strong conflict of interest prevention system.”

It took an unforeseen public embarrassment just before crucial elections to come to this sudden realization. Efforts to bring a stringent law to tackle conflict of interest in the public sector have been put on the backburner for years now, mostly due to reluctant lawmakers across the ideological spectrum.

In fact, there is already a public service ethics law which seeks to establish the ethics of officials by preventing conflict of interests through the prevention from acquiring unlawful property and securing fairness in the execution of their official duties. It prescribes matters necessary for the regulation of property acquisition by public officials who take advantage of their office, a report on gifts and blind trust of the stocks by officials, and restrictions, etc. on the employment and acts of retired officials.

Article 2-2 of the law states that the central and local governments shall strive to promote the smooth progress in the performance of duties of public officials in relation with their property interests, so as not to cause any difficult situation in their fair performance of duties.

“Public officials shall appropriately and faithfully perform their duties with a preference of public interests, so as not to cause any difficult situation in the fair performance of their duties in relation with their property interests,” it notes.

It further adds that no public official shall pursue private interests or grant illegal preferential benefits to any individual, institution or organization using his or her public position, and unfairly use the information acquired during his or her incumbency for private purposes or have another person use such information unlawfully.

However, the law has not been very effective in tackling conflict of interest and it is widely accepted that there is need to further strengthen it.

It was in this context that a clause to prevent conflict of interest among public officials in the current anti-graft law was shelved when it was initially taken up for discussion in the National Assembly five years ago. Subsequent efforts to introduce it have since been ignored.

Therefore, it is unclear whether a related law will be expedited, although Moon is right in noting that it is indeed an opportunity to do so. While one can expect strict action to be taken against the public officials involved in the LH scam, there is a possibility that the issue will die down after elections.

The government has so far identified 20 public officials suspected of buying land for speculation in the Gwangmyeong-Siheung area, and Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun has pledged to declare a “war” against real estate crimes.

A government task force has confirmed 13 of the LH officials identified by the civic groups and found seven more after looking into 14,000 employees of LH and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

The detailed findings will be transferred to a special police investigative team, which will expand the probe to include spouses and relatives of the officials in question.

The latest scandal comes in the backdrop of soaring property prices in since May 2017 when Moon came into office, despite repeated government interventions to cool down the market. Housing affordability has become a headache, as his high levels of support have started slipping due to scandals, high unemployment and slow economic growth.

Historically, real estate has been the safest and most lucrative investment vehicle in Korea. Believing that the rise in housing prices is triggered more by speculation than real demand, the government has on various occasions stepped in to curb the price rise and crack down on speculation.

Market watchers expect the property market to continue to attract public attention and policy focus in 2021 as house prices will maintain their upward trend.

As noted by analysts, two factors will drive the anticipated growth in housing prices. On the supply side, the housing stock will sustain the persistent increase in prices for new properties and also add upward price pressure in the second-hand property market. On the demand side, property remains a favorite investment asset and will continue to be so.

If the government is really keen to curb housing prices and gain back public confidence, it must ensure that its real estate policies are in tune with reality and not just stopgap measures. More importantly in the context of the current scandal, it must beef up its checks and balances on conflict of interest in the public sector.

Conflicts of interest in the public sector are particularly important, because if they are not recognized and controlled appropriately they can undermine the fundamental integrity of the government.

GameStop frenzy amid shorting debate in Korea

2021-03-12T17:08:00.003+09:00

Retail investors across the world, including South Korea, were captivated recently with the revolt targeting short selling by Wall Street hedge funds, which jacked up the stocks of a few firms, video game retailer GameStop in particular.

Shorting refers to transactions when an investor borrows stocks and sells them soon in hopes of buying back later at a lower price, taking advantage of perceived arbitrage opportunities.

In the case of GameStop, institutional short sellers got very greedy. They bet against the game retailer and hoped its price would plummet by shorting more stocks than were available through its float.

Frustrated at watching the manipulations by big fish to rake in moolah, retail investors banded together -- through online brokerage apps and anonymous social media messaging boards -- and drove the price higher through a short squeeze, in turn pocketing windfall profits. The financial institutions were forced to unwind their short positions, losing an estimated $20 billion.

Although a course correction is widely anticipated -- GameStop stocks have cooled down from a high of 140 percent two weeks ago -- with calls for a probe by regulators rising, the David vs. Goliath battle that rattled the US and European stock markets has now spread to Asia.

The uprising caught the attention of White House, even as retail investors, celebrities and lawmakers have decried any move to impose restrictions. Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission has vowed to protect individual traders and also promised to scrutinize the unfair actions of large brokerages.

This showdown between retail investors and FIs, which has peaked now, is not something new. Korea is no exception, and is in fact turning out to be the new battleground for this face-off.

During the global financial crisis in 2008, more than half the financial markets tightened their regulations to restrict shorting. The measures included a ban on naked shorting -- transactions without borrowing the asset from someone else or ensuring that it can be borrowed -- and short selling of financial companies’ stocks, and strengthened disclosure rules related to the practice.

When stock prices sharply fell, Korea banned covered and naked shorting of all stocks from Oct. 1, 2008.

This followed vehement opposition by many retail investors who stated that shorting increased unfair practices and would increase market volatility.

The stock market in Korea is perceived as being asymmetric due to the limited market access of retail investors. While foreign and institutional investors can borrow stocks for a year with lower fees, retail investors must pay hefty fees and sell borrowed stocks within 90 days, leading to an unleveled playing field.

As the financial crisis subsided, most countries eased or lifted their restrictions and Korea followed suit, allowing short selling of all stocks with exceptions.

Since then, the Financial Services Commission has continued to tighten regulations. However, retail investors have pointed out flaws in the system and the situation finally came to a head last year.

As a result, one of the world’s longest bans on shorting was imposed in March last year. Following a six-month extension which lapses on March 15, the financial regulator has announced that the temporary ban will be lifted in May, while pledging a stringent monitoring system to detect illegal shorting.

This has sparked an intense debate between FIs that have been severely hit by the ban, academicians, market analysts and retail investors. While retail investors are pushing for a total ban on shorting, the move does not find much support from other market players and experts.

The debate on shorting has political implications too.

With interest in trading equities growing and retail investors being the primary force for the bullish trend during the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 203,000 people have signed a petition imploring President Moon Jae-in to make shorting illegal -- a threshold of 200,000 compels him to officially respond.

The country’s benchmark Kospi hit a historic 3,000 points earlier last month, continuing a yearlong upward trend. Retail investors purchased a net 67.7 trillion won ($60.5 billion) worth of stocks on the country’s main Kospi and secondary Kosdaq markets last year.

A market crash would bode badly for the ruling party in April by-elections to elect mayors for Seoul and Busan. But the FSC sees little justification to continue the current ban as the stock market has continued to outperform. The regulator has vowed to improve market transparency by enhancing monitoring and establishing additional safety nets by the time the cap is removed.

The regulator, meanwhile, plans to level the playing field and invite more retail investors to take part in shorting activities as they are mostly carried out by foreign and institutional investors now.

Even the International Monetary Fund has pitched in, urging Korea to end its shorting ban, saying it risks making the market less efficient.

Most economists are of the view that there is nothing wrong with shorting. They insist that a ban not only undermines market efficiency and quality, but also causes overpricing and substantial deterioration of market quality.

It is a vital investment strategy that responds to market fundamentals, facilitates efficiency, mitigates price bubbles and promotes risk management activities.

In fact, shorting is not all that bad and is a very useful scheme for individuals who know how to use it to their advantage. It can be an opportunity for retail investors to earn a profit when stock prices decline. They should equip themselves with sufficient know-how about the market and utilize the system for gains when appropriate.

As they say, the stock market is not for the faint-hearted. Unfortunately, in Korea most of the retail investors are ignoring the accompanying risks. And when they get blindsided they look for convenient scapegoats like shorting.

A total ban on the practice goes against international capital market practices and a more prudent approach is required for devising shorting regulations and setting the level of restrictions in the future.

Indo-Sino conflict in context of S. Korea’s problems

2020-11-06T15:56:00.001+09:00

China recently blocked Indian websites and e-commerce platforms in retaliation for India’s move to ban 59 Chinese apps and prevent Chinese companies from participating in infrastructure projects.

It is laughable, given that Facebook, Google and LinkedIn have been blocked in the mainland for years -- my friends there throw their hands up in exasperation as they have to only use local social media platforms -- and the country is now also blocking virtual private networks.

The Cold War between the “Dragon” and the “Elephant” will last long, as China thinks India is moving closer to the US in geopolitical terms.

The latest standoff was sparked by a clash between soldiers in the northernmost Indian territory of Ladakh. Twenty Indian soldiers died, but as usual the Chinese haven’t revealed how many of their soldiers died -- unverifiable accounts say 40.

China is adept at turning up geopolitical tensions against neighbors -- including South Korea -- to divert “nationalist” domestic public opinion when authorities are woefully inadequate in dealing with crises like COVID-19. The Hong Kong National Security Act is the latest such measure.

A recent report by the Korea Economics Institute of America noted, “China’s punitive economic measures against South Korea over THAAD (a US anti-missile system) may have shrouded Beijing-Seoul relations in uncertainty, yet they highlight the economic dependence on China.”

Yes, Korea has been dependent on China for growth as it is a trade-dependent nation and the neighboring country accounts for a huge chunk of exports.

But the communist neighbor has been flexing its muscles to put spokes in the wheels of growth of neighboring countries, many times unreasonably.

According to a recent report of the think tank Asan Forum, by Darren J. Lim, senior lecturer at Australian National University and his doctorate student Victor Ferguson, while the US-China trade war has dominated geoeconomic discussions in 2019, great power rivalry is far from the only domain in which economic instruments are being used in the pursuit of political or strategic objectives.

“The increasing frequency of … Chinese economic coercion (the threat or imposition of economic costs designed to influence others’ behavior) makes the broader study of economic coercion increasingly important for both scholars and policymakers. There remains a need for greater clarity regarding the nature of power and vulnerability generated by economic interdependence, especially in the Chinese context.”

“In this context, the widely reported campaign against Korean economic interests following Seoul’s decision to participate in the United States-led THAAD missile defense program, announced in July 2016, offers a valuable case study.

“The THAAD dispute represents a broad-based coercive episode directed at an ostensibly vulnerable target: China is Korea’s largest trading partner -- the destination of approximately one-quarter of its total merchandise and service exports at the time of the dispute -- and therefore essential to national gross domestic product, 40 percent of which comes from exports. By contrast, South Korea was the source of just 10 percent of Chinese merchandise imports and did not feature among the mainland’s top service suppliers.”

The report notes that over the approximately 18-month dispute, multiple Korean economic sectors experienced varying degrees of disruption.

“The headline victim of economic retaliation was Lotte Group, which at the time relied on the Chinese market for approximately 25 percent of its overseas sales. Lotte was targeted because it was directly implicated in the political dispute, having signed a land swap deal to provide Korea’s Defense Ministry with land needed to install THAAD missile batteries in late February 2017.”

Also, prior to the THAAD dispute, Chinese tourists made up 47 percent of total tourist arrivals and 70-80 percent of duty-free sales. Tourism became the industry most affected by the political tensions.

Hallyu content producers and automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors also faced a severe blow.

Japan is not far behind -- from the Dokdo islets to comfort women issues and forced labor during World War II -- it continues to turn a blind eye to reality.

Since they have been well documented, I won’t repeat the details here.

To up the ante, United States President Donald Trump invited Korea and India along with Australia and Russia to join an expanded meeting of Group of Seven advanced economies later this year. The event is viewed as an attempt by the US to form a broader alliance against China. Korea accepted the invite, much to China’s chagrin

“China’s aggressive stance in the Indo-Sino border conflict, its handling of dissent in Hong Kong and its retaliatory actions against Canada for arresting the Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in 2018, will in the medium term hit China where it hurts the most -- its economy,” according to Nandini Vijayaraghavan, head of Research at Korea Development Bank, based in Singapore.

“China was facing its share of macroeconomic challenges even before the COVID-19 outbreak, namely, slowing though still robust GDP growth, high corporate and household indebtedness and the risks posed by its sizable shadow banking sector. Rightly or wrongly, the country now faces reputation risks on account of perceptions of willfully delaying the reporting of the COVID-19 outbreak.”

She noted that now that India and China have banned each other’s apps, the proxy war between the two nations has progressed to a second round. The Indian food delivery startup Zomato has reportedly not been able to access around $100 million funding from Ant Financial. The development is a Pyrrhic victory for all parties.

“It is in China’s self-interest to rethink its foreign policy and communications strategy.”

Meanwhile, authors Li Lin and Leng Hongtao, of the school of Marxism studies at Dalian Ocean University in Dalian, China, note that “soft power theory, coined by Joseph Nye, is supplement and extension of traditional hard power ideology, and a return to classical realism, as well as a criticism about the fact that neorealism relies overwhelmingly on hard power.”

Joseph Nye proposes that “soft power is a kind of ability which can realize the goal through attraction instead of the violence or the temptation. The attractiveness arises from a country’s culture, political ideals and foreign policies. When the policy is seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, the soft power is enhanced.”

Korea is doing that with Hallyu. India needs to do that with Bollywood and other aspects of culture, like yoga.

I am not sure how the standoff between two nuclear powers with the two largest populations in the world and growing economies will pan out.

Hold your breath, with face masks on.

Korean Air, Asiana face turbulent tailwinds

2020-11-06T15:54:00.004+09:00

South Korea’s main flagship air carriers appear to be facing strong headwinds at the same time and it is worrisome.

Korean Air and Asiana Airlines are embroiled in their own difficulties, and it is all connected to the typical family-owned conglomerate management system that is so prevalent here.

While there have been calls for chaebol reform over the past years I have been here -- starting with Roh Moo-hyun administration -- there have been no drastic changes so far.

I have always admired Roh, and think he genuinely tried to reform chaebol governance and the prevalent system -- but even he was not successful and got bogged down by the entrenched system.

That aside, I am referring to the problems faced by Hanjin Group and Kumho Asiana. Their problems are different, but not completely. It all boils down to how the chaebol -- family-owned “kingdoms” operate here.

The unexpected passing away of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho, came as a real shock here. It came weeks after he was ousted from the board of directors of the group that controls Korea’s flagship air carrier Korean Air.

Cho, 70, who had served as the airline’s CEO since 1999, died in the United States on April 7, where he had been receiving medical treatment for a chronic lung disease -- all hush-hush till he died.

If you talk of transparent corporate governance, it should have been made public that he was sick -- after all it is a listed firm. But don’t expect such corporate transparency here, not yet.

His only son and Korean Air President Cho Won-tae is now set to take control.

Hanjin, Korea’s 14th-biggest conglomerate by assets, including its affiliates Korean Air, as budget carrier Jin Air, Hanjin KAL and several other logistics companies face an uncertain future now.

The Cho family has been struggling with a string of controversies, especially regarding the high-handed behavior of the patriarch’s two daughters and his wife.

His removal from the board was the first time a founding family member of any chaebol had been forced out of a key post by shareholders. It is a good start.

He was on trial after he was indicted last year on multiple charges that include embezzlement and tax evasion. But that is nothing, chaebol owners here have been let off on far more serious charges after presidential pardons.

His death is expected to speed up changes to the ownership structure of Hanjin Group as a whole, with his son likely to take the reins of the group’s management. Of course given the inheritance taxes the family has to pay it could delay the process … till they figure out the “legal” loopholes.

According to news reports the group has adopted an emergency management arrangement that will leave the chairmanship vacant for now and entrust decisions to a collective leadership made up of several top executives.

As regards Kumho Asiana, which owns Asiana Airlines, it is also complicated.

Reeling under humongous debt and pressure from creditors, the group’s board decided this month to sell the air carrier, a day after main creditors rejected its latest self-rescue proposal.

“For normalization of Asiana, we considered the best option and decided that its sell-off will recover trust in the group and the airline,” it said in a statement.

“The sale of Asiana -- with a 31-year history -- is also for the sake of the future development of the company, as well as for some 10,000 employees,” it said, adding that the group would proceed with the sale process.

This follows a “qualified opinion” issued by Asiana’s auditor Samil PwC.

Samil suggested that “the company might have provided limited financial information.”

It disagreed with Asiana on how much the airline allowed liabilities for operating-leased aircraft repair and earnings from mileage.

While airlines across the world have faced similar situations for decades, it is really sad that the top air carriers in Korea are in trouble.

For example, 24 airlines in the US have filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 since the early 1980s, while 60 have filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.

Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a legal process that can help individuals get relief from debts by discharging -- or clearing -- some or all of what’s owed. Chapter 11 is a form of bankruptcy that involves a reorganization of a debtor’s business affairs, debts and assets.

Meanwhile, SK and Hanwha groups have been mentioned as potential buyers of Asiana, but they are also family-controlled, so I don’t see how the ground situation will change.

With low jet fuel prices now, one would have expected Korea’s top air carriers to rake in profits, so it certainly means there was something wrong with their management.

It all boils down to the chaebol culture. The “family” reigns supreme and they do whatever they want without bothering about other stakeholders.

That is why it is good that the National Pension Service which has substantial stakes in chaebol firms is now strengthening its stewardship code. Hopefully, politicians with a vested interest won’t put pressure to derail it.

Of course some blue chip firms will continue to thrive with their skullduggery. There are many which I won’t name.

It is also good that activist shareholders -- not just overseas investors, but even Korean firms -- are not keeping quiet and demanding changes to the way the chaebol operate.

There is still a long way to go, but finally things are moving -- 15 years after I first landed in Korea.

Is Korea’s launch of world’s 1st 5G services hype?

2020-11-06T15:53:00.002+09:00

The next-generation wireless network technology 5G is in the limelight as South Korea is poised to beat the United States as the first to cross the finish line.

Tech giant Samsung Electronics has said it will launch its Galaxy S10 5G device in collaboration with the nation’s largest telecom operator SK Telecom on Friday, beating US telco Verizon, which is scheduled to launch its fifth-generation services across the country on April 11.

But how exactly will 5G telecom services benefit consumers? Why this rush to be the world’s first?

It will make no material difference if services are below par, and going by the palli-palli (fast-fast) Korean culture, I am sure many Samsung and SKT executives are trembling to launch services by the given deadline. Remember the Galaxy Note 7 fire fiasco when they did not look before they leaped?

According to a recent report by MarketWatch, the 5G penetration rate in Korea will be 5 percent by 2020, and subscribers will increase from 30 percent in 2020 to 90 percent in 2026.

“The 5G hype across the world has led Korea to invest $1.7 billion to roll out 5G wireless services that would enable users to download a full movie within a second. This would enable the related industries to upsell new 5G related devices and infrastructure equipment, and earn revenue worth $350 million by 2026. This will help in the expansion of the telecom infrastructure equipment industry,” the report noted.

The major growth factors driving the 5G market are continuous evolution toward enhanced bandwidth, lower latency, enhanced security and openness of mobile networks.

However, the region faces growth challenges, such as regulatory pressures. For instance, the Korean government is forcing SKT, the dominant mobile carrier, to lower the rates that it is proposing to recoup its investments.

Another report by the International Telecommunication Union noted that expectations of 5G are high, with many assuming it will deliver a “transformative promised land.”

“As long as the investment case for 5G remains uncertain, industry and policymakers should remain cautious and should consider enhancing the availability and quality of existing 4G networks in the run up to 5G,” said the report.

But the Korean telcos and government want to be the first to launch 5G services -- an obvious case of ego issues.

I will be the first to applaud if Korea -- my home since 2004 -- gets that distinction but caution is needed.

Do consumers really need this hyped-up costly service now, without adequate field tests and knowing how they will really benefit? The current Long Term Evolution 4G services are very comfortable.

The 5G services won’t be available in every country at the same time. Estimates say that by 2023, up to 32 percent of North American mobile connections will be on a 5G network. Central American countries will most likely see a slow 5G rollout. Asia is far behind.

Korea’s push to be the world’s first is understandable in this context. But I personally think it is taking the palli-palli culture to the next level.

There is no need to commercialize a next-generation service and fool consumers to pay for something that will bring no immediate material benefits. It may actually benefit customers one year down the road -- not now.

To understand the logic behind their rush, I tried contacting the three telcos in Korea -- KT, SKT and LG Uplus -- which operate mobile services here.

KT, which tested its 5G services during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, responded.

The firm, which has massive telecom infrastructure here that actually made Korea an ICT powerhouse before it was overtaken by SKT, has invested heavily to build the next-generation network that will allow customers to experience faster and more secure services.

“We are preparing B2C (business-to-consumer) 5G plans and services to deliver the maximum benefits of 5G to the general public. KT plans to introduce specialized apps and connected devices (neckband cameras and GiGA Live TV, etc.) with the launch of the full-scale 5G commercialization,” a spokesperson noted.

KT is especially focusing on what people enjoy the most with their mobile phones, such as making calls, playing games and watching videos, so that they can better experience what true 5G is.

“We are also developing various use cases in the B2B (business-to-business) areas, such as smart factories, smart cities and connected cars, by utilizing 5G’s ultra-low latency and massive connectivity,” he noted.

KT believes that it can pursue a good balance between providing world-class 5G services and making sustainable investments by optimizing the deployment of its 5G network and cooperating with global partners to develop and upgrade 5G technologies.

The company is working on introducing data plans that are appropriate for 5G customers by analyzing their needs and data usage.

It launched its commercial 5G network in December last year following the government’s 5G spectrum auction. Since then, KT has successfully demonstrated various 5G services, such as robot guides and baristas as well as real-time broadcasting.

“Considering the time it usually takes for developing and making new apps or special devices, Korea is likely about a year ahead of the competition. Overseas, many 5G services are still in initial development,” the spokesperson noted.

KT has the upper hand for now. In collaboration with Samsung, it has already installed the largest number of 5G base stations across the country.

It is true that local telcos are investing heavily. But how will Korean citizens benefit? Higher download speeds are just a marketing point for now to rake in more revenue. It is still early days for the 5G ecosystem to flourish. I would prefer to wait one year before I make the shift from LTE.

I agree that 5G will not only enable faster connections, but will provide improved bandwidth. The benefits will spread further than just smartphones. The technology will cover the internet of things and will act as a catalyst for a wide range of new consumer and enterprise experiences, including both data intensive and energy efficient applications. But not now.

Juniper Research forecasts a healthy adoption of 5G services, with revenues set to exceed $65 billion by 2025 globally. It might be a few years away, but the potential improvements a 5G network can provide are enough to get tech-savvy Korean consumers very excited.

I am proud that Korea is the first country to commercialize 5G services, but will not fall into the trap telcos have set for customers. I will wait and watch. Why pay more for a service when the present LTE 4G network is efficient and satisfies my needs?

S. Korea-India economic ties need more heft

2020-11-06T15:50:00.003+09:00

It is now nine years since the South Korea-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement -- a de facto free trade agreement -- went into effect. However, while much progress has been made, there is still a long way to go for economic ties to reach their potential.

It was widely anticipated that the CEPA, which came into effect in January 2010, would lead to more bilateral trade and investments. South Korea abolished tariffs on 93 percent of Indian imports and India has done the same on 75 percent of Korean imports.

Besides, the agreement sought to increase the interactive trade account, as it includes investments in various sectors like goods, services and even intellectual property.

They have since set a target to increase bilateral trade to $50 billion by 2030 from around $25 billion last year.

While bilateral trade has no doubt improved, it is still way below expectations.

It is true that large South Korean brands are household names in India and their strength has grown in the years since they began operations there. However, foreign direct investment inflows have been growing at a tardy pace.

The India-South Korea CEPA has certainly helped, according to Rishi Ramachandran, an Indian entrepreneur and CEO of Group IBI, an Asia-focused business intelligence and market development consultancy.

He has lived in Seoul for more than two decades, during which he has followed the evolution of trade ties between both countries and advised organizations on CEPA in particular.

“Rather than an agreement, I would term it a useful mechanism for fostering trade between South Korea and India and for easing trade barriers and tariffs in the long run,” he told The Korea Herald, adding that both sides are trying to access sectors in which they can be competitive.

“But these are subject to progressive easing of both tariff and nontariff barriers. For example, in a sector like pharmaceuticals, both South Korea and India have successful manufacturers of generic drugs, and for whom countries in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Asia are key target markets. However, the best Indian drug companies can hope for is supplying APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) to the Korean pharma sector, as opposed to supplying finished formulations.”

But even then, successful cases are rare and the scope is highly limited since the pharma industry is highly regulated in South Korea with significant nontariff barriers. On the other hand, India could export more food products and consumer products in areas such as coffee, tropical fruits, leather goods and fashion accessories for which there is plenty of demand, he said.

As key economic partners, Ramachandran noted that trade relations are continually improving. However, what India needs is a significant boost in the promotion of Indian brands in South Korea.

“The ‘Made in India’ moniker still has questionable quality and packaging issues attached to it. India needs to address this as a priority and promote well-established brands in South Korea,” he said.

“India needs to realize that South Korea (and most other Asian geographies) is highly brand- and image-conscious. Therefore, Indian products sold here not only have to be of impeccable quality -- as they are competing against domestic products as well as products from overseas -- but they also need to be packaged well, presented well and marketed well.”

As a case in point he noted Indian mango shipments, which are renowned the world over but can hardly be seen at retail outlets here today, contrary to their sudden surge here in late 2016.

Rather than a single bottleneck, there are two main factors hindering growth of mango exports to South Korea, he said.

One is tariffs since, just like CEPA, South Korea also has a free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that benefit exports from the Philippines and other regional countries.

While CEPA entails gradual scaling down of tariffs on Indian products from 30 percent to zero percent over eight years, the tariff targets with ASEAN are far more aggressive and trade-friendly.

Also, when compared to the Philippines, Vietnam or other Asian countries that sell mangoes in South Korea, India does not have a visible dedicated entity on the ground in Seoul promoting mangoes and Indian agricultural exports.

“A dedicated entity can ensure not just maximization of tariff benefits, but more importantly ensuring maximum front-end promotion in South Korea, i.e. customization in terms of product quality, packaging and selling to the right channels.”

The Agriculture and Processed Foods Export Development Authority of India organizes seminars and promotional events at trade fairs where importers can inquire and place orders. If there was a dedicated team here for promotion year-round, the products could go to the right retail channels. As an example, what Australia does with meat and livestock for promotion in international markets is a good benchmark, he said.

As regards economic areas, Ramachandran noted that the country is already benefiting significantly not just through exports to India, but also through large-scale investments that Korean conglomerates and their supply chain partners have made, be it Hyundai Motor, Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics or Lotte Group.

“India is therefore not only a huge captive market for South Korean consumer goods and cars, but also a huge low-cost manufacturing base for Korean exports to other countries. And it will continue to increase as all of these companies scale up their production, or add new facilities, like the world’s largest mobile phone factory for Samsung that was inaugurated in Noida (near New Delhi) during President Moon Jae-in’s visit to India last year.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Seoul, he said, should by default lead to better ties “That said, this visit by Modi was a short one and ostensibly did not include a business delegation from India. So while headline issues and geopolitical climate in the region may have been discussed, in terms of economic ties, this was at best a follow-on to the platform laid by President Moon’s high-profile visit to India in July 2018.”

India’s demonetization and Korea’s currency reform

2016-12-19T09:40:00.002+09:00

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi stunned the nation when he made a public announcement at 8 p.m. on Nov. 8 that 86 percent of the currency in circulation -- 500-rupee (US$7.40) and 1,000-rupee notes -- would no longer be legal tender at the stroke of midnight.
The ostensible reason for this was to fight rampant corruption and the underground economy along with counterfeit notes printed by Pakistan to fuel terrorism in India.
He asked the Indian citizens to bear the short-term inconvenience for long-term benefits that would accrue to the economy. While the public has by-and-large supported the move, the anti-Modi cottage industry and opposition politicians have been very critical.
Sure, the public has been inconvenienced because the central bank did not ensure that adequate replacement currency was supplied to commercial banks and the ATM’s were fully stocked across the length and breadth of the country. As a result, there have been long queues of people waiting to exchange their invalid currency and withdraw lower-denomination notes for daily expenses. India’s massive cash-dependent informal sector has been hit hard, and there are even reports of people dying in queues.
However, the public has still not lost patience as Modi has pleaded for time until Dec. 30 for things to get back to normal. The common citizens are willing to give him the benefit of doubt, although his rivals do not.
The jury is still out on whether the move will bring economic benefits to Asia’s third-largest economy or prove to be a huge blunder that could see Modi out of power in 2019, when the parliamentary elections are due next.
That aside, I see in this an opportunity for the Korean authorities to draw lessons from India’s demonetization exercise and see how they can effectively implement the long overdue currency reforms to tackle the underground economy here.
The size of Korea’s underground economy is estimated at 161 trillion won ($143.62 billion) a year. A recent study by Kim Jong-hee, professor of Chonbuk National University, showed that it is equivalent to 10 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, much higher than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average -- 6.65 percent of G-7 countries as well as 7.66 percent for the other member states.
The amount of tax evasion stood at an annual average of 55 trillion won in the last 20 years, 3.72 percent of the GDP.
“Underground economic activities induce tax dodging, leading to fiscal deficits and tax hikes for key economic actors to make up for the uncollected taxes,” Kim said in the report.
In Korea, it is common for corporates to set up slush funds to bribe politicians, as evident from the frequent raids by prosecutors, which are obviously held in cash of large denomination notes and not in banks. For that reason, there have been many calls to scrap the biggest note, 50,000 won, something that the Bank of Korea is wary of.
In my opinion, Korea should also go in for the bold move of demonetizing the 50,000-won note without notice, so people do not have a chance to convert their illegal currency -- as they will be forced to deposit it in banks and account for it -- and then go in for redenomination of the currency.
This is where the Indian experience will prove handy.
The ground situation in Korea is different and many of the problems India is facing now will not affect the country. Especially since the banking network is more widely used and people are more financially savvy.
For instance, unlike India which is a cash-dependent country, Koreans are increasingly favoring cashless transactions.
According to a central bank survey, Koreans carry on average 1.91 credit cards, 2.03 mobile cards and 1.26 check or debit cards. Four out of 10 picked credit cards as the means of payment they use most, up from three out of 10 the previous year. The ratio of those picking cash, meanwhile, continues to fall.
As Koreans are carrying less cash, with the average standing at 74,000 won last year, down 3,000 won from the previous year, the central bank is also issuing less cash. It released 12.3 percent fewer 10,000-won banknotes last year from the previous year, while the issuance of 5,000 won notes dipped 5.9 percent and 1,000 won bills 3.7 percent.
Statistics from the BOK show that credit cards, at 39.7 percent, make up the largest share of consumer transaction activity while cash accounted for 36 percent in 2015. There is also the increasing popularity of mobile payments, something that is negligible in India.
It would be prudent for the Korean policymakers to watch the Indian experience closely and flush out the problems.
Once the demonetization exercise is successfully completed, it should roll out the redenomination exercise.
Redenomination is the process of lowering the face value of a currency while preserving the same real value. It is simply moving decimal points, so a 1,000-won note will be redenominated as 1 won.
Since South Korea issued banknotes of 1,000 won and 5,000 won in the 1970s, there has been no redenomination to abbreviate the unit of the currency. The 50,000-won bill only made its debut in 2009 in the wake of the rapidly falling value of the 10,000-won bill.
Korea has redenominated twice since the Korean War. In 1953, when the hwan was introduced, with 1 hwan equal to 100 won. In 1962, the won was reinstated, with 1 won equal to 10 hwan.
The BOK claims it has carried out no task on a currency redenomination since 2004 when the government decided to put off discussions on the issue. Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho also recently said that the government has no plans for a redenomination, noting it could cause great confusion.
It is true that a redenomination can cause public inconvenience in the process of adjusting to new bills and a possible hike in consumer prices and spread psychological anxiety among economic players.
Deciding to redenominate during an economic downturn signals that an economy is in very serious trouble and likely to face a currency crisis. It can lower a nation’s international credibility and prompt outflow of foreign capital.
It can also cause prices to become unstable. Redenomination is usually adopted during high inflation and political insecurity (something that Korea is currently facing). Under such circumstances, preference for hard assets rise, pushing up prices for real estate and gold. Such appreciation of hard asset prices can put inflationary pressure.
Moreover, issuing and circulating new coins and paper currency is costly. Financial institutions need to replace their existing payment systems and ATM machines, which requires huge expenditure.
According to some experts, redenomination can drive illegal money into the underground economy because information about personal wealth can be revealed during the process of exchanging old currency with the new one. This is invalid if demonetization takes place.
That is a sure way to tackle the underground economy and boost the currency. It of course requires political will and a strong leader like Modi.

Samsung's Note 7 fiasco and perils of 'ppalli-ppalli' culture

2016-10-17T13:43:00.000+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The last few weeks have been tumultuous for tech giant Samsung Electronics, as it has been knocked down by the battery explosions of its latest flagship smartphone Galaxy Note 7 across the globe.

Samsung recalled 2.5 million Note 7 smartphones in September 2016 after a number of the units spontaneously burst into flames. Faulty batteries were blamed at first, and it issued replacement phones it claimed were safe. However, some of the new phones suffered the same problem, and the firm asked consumers to switch off their Note 7s on Oct. 11. All production and sales of Note 7 handsets has now been stopped, and the model has been withdrawn from the market.

South Korea’s No. 1 conglomerate is still struggling to recover, having initially regained composure and immediately ordered a global recall only to stumble and fall when the replacement handsets also overheated and exploded.

After numerous cases of exploding batteries and a botched replacement program, with sales now discontinued worldwide, some analysts predict the Note brand is finished for good and will be given a quiet burial.

It is a pity, because the Note was truly a game changer and this year’s model got the best reviews the product line had ever seen.

When it was first launched in 2011, many mocked its large screen size, with Wired even lamenting that its “comically huge” 5.3-inch screen made the device too big for pockets and thumbs alike. But ultimately, its popularity meant that even archrival Apple was forced to follow suit.

Another feature that was ridiculed was the stylus, which also has been imitated by competitors. The fourth edition was the first smartphone to be tailored for virtual reality -- that too is being aped by others now.

It won’t be an understatement to say this is an unprecedented crisis that will haunt the group for a long time to come.

Samsung has now lowered its operating profit estimate for the third quarter to 5.2 trillion won ($4.6 billion) from the original estimate of 7.8 trillion won. It also lowered its expected revenue to 47 trillion won from 49 trillion won.

Most analysts have pegged the cost of the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco at about $4 billion, including recall expenses and lost sales, with the mobile division even expected to report an operating loss.

As Fitch Ratings has noted, potential long-term brand damage from the recall and production suspension of the Note 7 is a greater threat to its credit profile than the direct financial impact, which will be buffered by ample liquidity and a strong balance sheet.

“Fitch believes that the benefits of Samsung Electronics’ diversified product portfolio have reduced its vulnerability to this shock. ... However, the problems with the Note 7 have raised long-term uncertainty about its handset operations, as the issues with the flagship model have highlighted weaknesses both in R&D capabilities and the company’s capacity to efficiently remedy serious hardware defects.”

The ratings agency then went on to add that industry experience, such as the decline of Nokia and BlackBerry, shows how successful manufacturers can lose market share particularly quickly in the handset business. This is due to the fast pace of technological change and the frequency with which many consumers change their handsets.

These are indeed tough times for Samsung, but I think it will not be long before it overcomes it, given the tenacity of Koreans.

On that note, I should also add that the crisis that Samsung faces now can be linked to the unique “ppalli-palli” culture in the country.

The Korean term means “fast; quickly; hurry up” in English. Every single economic achievement the nation has reached to this day is linked to this culture. Koreans do everything as quickly as possible with dedication to achieving the set goals as soon as possible. As a result, it has become the main work ethic that is understood by all employees and strictly enforced by bosses.

For that matter, ppalli-ppalli is so ingrained in Koreans that mothers don’t tell their children “come along.” They say “ppalli-ppalli wa,” or “come quickly.” My Korean friends and even wife do the same to me!

I worked in the European Union business lobby in the country for close to eight years during my 12-year stay here and have come face-to-face with this culture numerous times. Although a foreign organization in name, it used to be run as a typical domestic company since the chief operating officer was Korean. While this culture makes employees put in long work hours, it does not really enhance productivity.

Most Korean companies want things to be done as quickly as possible without due checks and balances. Meeting the deadline is more important than doing a perfect job.

Although Samsung heir apparent Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is trying to totally transform the work culture at his group, it can be successful only if those lower down adhere to the changes. Which, I believe, is not the case.

This is evident from the fact that the botched recall raises questions about how carefully Samsung researched safety issues around the original Note 7, as well as the replacement.

Samsung has often challenged itself by cramming sophisticated components into a new device in time to beat the launch of the latest iPhone. This time, it advanced the launch of the Note 7 to a month before the launch of iPhone 7 to gain an advantage.

It is reasonable to assume that everyone from the tech engineers, designers and suppliers were told to strictly adhere to the deadline ppalli-ppalli, and somewhere down the line appropriate safety checks were ignored or glossed over.

Moreover, faced with trouble when the first batch of recalls took place, it should have taken the time to analyze the mistake, but wanted to get back in the game ppalli-ppalli. It found a quick fix -- blaming the overheating on a batch of Samsung SDI batteries -- and deployed it with characteristic speed and efficiency. Unfortunately, the diagnosis was wrong.

It seems highly likely that Samsung’s ppalli-ppalli efforts to pack ever more power in these sleek devices may have contributed to the Note 7’s tendency to overheat and even explode by cramming a high-capacity battery into too small a space.

Typically, lithium-ion batteries have been relatively safe, but as batteries grow ever denser, that leaves an ever thinner margin for error in design and manufacturing. Being ppalli-ppalli in evaluating their performance is a definite no-no -- something the Samsung executives behind the project did not comprehend.

Hopefully, it will be a lesson for the company and it will bounce back ppalli-ppalli.

Government role in corporate debt restructuring

2016-06-23T21:47:00.000+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The hot topic in Korean corporate circles today is undoubtedly the moves by the government and state-run policy banks to bail out the ailing shipbuilding and shipping companies.

Given the importance of these sectors in Korea and their prolonged financial distress, it is understandable that the government has pushed the panic button. The process of bailing them out has been set in motion with some sort of consensus reached between the Finance Ministry and Bank of Korea.

BOK Gov. Lee Ju-yeol has cautioned against the central bank mobilizing its power to print money in the ongoing corporate restructuring. He was echoing the sentiments of critics, who have raised worries over the government’s possible misuse of the money-issuing authority.

The current crisis in the shipping and shipbuilding industries is very much evident. Once regarded as the backbone of Korea’s economic growth and job creation, they have been reeling from mounting losses caused by an industry-wide slump and increased costs.

Hanjin Shipping and Hyundai Merchant Marine -- the major South Korean shipping companies -- face trouble with mounting losses and have applied for creditor-led debt restructuring.

The top three shipbuilders have also failed to clinch a single deal in April, according to latest data.

They only managed to win five construction deals over the first four months of this year, which is only around 5 percent of the average amount posted in previous years.

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Hyundai Heavy Industries, failed to win any deals in April. Samsung Heavy Industries has not earned any orders this year for the first time.

Given this dismal situation, it is important to ask: Is active government involvement in corporate debt restructuring really advisable?

No doubt, corporate debt restructuring is an important step toward recovery. But what are the limits to which the government should stick to without putting a burden on other sectors and more importantly tax payers?

Given the interlinkages between corporate debt problems on one hand and the recovery of the financial system and overall economy on the other hand, several governments across the world in the past have introduced measures to help facilitate the process of corporate debt resolution.

However, there are a number of complications involved.

Corporate debt problems have often created real risks of disruption of activity as companies have difficulties meeting their working capital needs to secure production. This in some cases led to weaker capacity to service existing debt and further deteriorated their balance sheet.

The slowdown of activity has contributed to unemployment and the nonperforming loans have endangered the already weakened banking system and further reduce the ability of banks to extend credit, slowing down the recovery.

As experts have noted, debt overhang becomes self-perpetuating as corporations are unable to deleverage by retaining earning or issuing equity because of recession, but recession is also being prolonged by the high level of debt.

The government’s rescue efforts of embattled corporates typically entail direct fiscal costs and may have increased the contingent risk in the future due to moral hazard. The resolution of corporate debt problems thus became an important part of the recovery strategies across a range of countries affected by the crisis.

A past IMF Working Paper, “Government Involvement in Corporate Debt Restructuring: Case Studies from the Great Recession” is worth noting here, and should be mandatory reading for Korea’s Finance Ministry officials at this time.

The paper surveys corporate debt restructuring episodes in Latvia, Russia, Spain, UAE, Ukraine, and the United States and provides a comparison of modalities of government.

It notes that in cases in which the number of troubled corporations is small, their potential macroeconomic importance is limited and the financial system is sound, the rationale for government’s involvement in corporate debt workouts is weak.

“In contrast, when corporate debt problems are widespread, with potentially sizable macroeconomic consequences, and market failures inhibit debt workouts on the required scale, a comprehensive approach involving government could be warranted. In these cases, however, the framework of such involvement needs to be carefully defined.”

That choice typically involves weighing the costs of intervention against the need for a speedy restructuring. The costs are not limited to the direct financial ones, and include indirect economic costs that could eventually appear from both action and inaction of the government.

Governments’ specific role in an effective corporate debt restructuring process typically includes provision of: appropriate legal foundations; mediation and incentives for out-of-court resolutions; direct financing; and facilitation of restructuring.

Large-scale debt workouts may require an overhaul of the legal framework and corresponding enforcement mechanisms.

Direct government financial assistance to facilitate debt restructuring is generally observed in cases in which debt problems are pervasive and impose negative externalities on the economy.

The incentives may include compensation to creditors for lengthening maturities or providing guarantees for corporate loans. Sometimes, such support also includes direct lending to companies that are viable but are unable to access markets on their own.

In addition to direct assistance to corporations, governments may provide indirect support to the corporate sector via assistance with bank recapitalization and liquidity provision.

This approach is being tried in Korea now.

The IMF paper notes that country experiences with wide-scale corporate debt restructuring in the past have been mixed and have involved lengthy and difficult processes.

“While outcomes varied by country, the past experience indicates that a properly designed strategy would generally make the best use of limited fiscal resources, target interventions where needed most, leverage market-based solutions and private resources, bolster credit enforcement and insolvency laws, and preserve credit culture.”

Tailoring a corporate debt restructuring strategy to individual country circumstances is a complex process involving attention to a number of key factors -- including policy coordination, analysis of data to assess the dimensions of the debt problem, reform of the legal and institutional framework for enforcement of credit, particularly the corporate insolvency law, identifying the rationale for government financing and coordination with financial sector restructuring, particularly with respect to banks.

“The direct financial costs of government interventions varied significantly across countries. While the fiscal and contingent costs in corporate debt restructuring episodes are somewhat smaller compared to the costs of financial sector support, they ranged from zero (where no fiscal resources were deployed) to 10 percent of GDP,” the IMF study notes

“However, it should be noted that contingent risks built up in the years before the crisis due to corporate sector debt have in some cases already translated into fiscal costs.”

In what should be positive for the Korean government at this stage, in general, the debt restructuring and related measures have helped avoid large-scale corporate insolvencies in the sample countries. These measures provided confidence to the markets and stabilized expectations.

However, they also came at a direct and indirect cost to the taxpayer. These interventions weakened the governments’ balance sheets as they accepted assets of questionable financial value in exchange for new resources that had ample alternative use in crisis times.

That is something that the Korean policymakers will have to monitor and work out as they race to bailout the ailing firms.

Amending retail price maintenance rules

2016-06-23T21:43:00.002+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission is all set to take a decision on amending the “Guidelines for Review of Resale Price Maintenance” as the public comment period has just concluded.

Resale price maintenance, or RPM, is a system in which the manufacturing firm determines and enforces the price at which distributors resell its products. Hence, it is also known as vertical price-fixing, price protection, or the practice of imposed prices.

Until now, RPM has been deemed illegal in Korea, and companies that are caught engaging in this practice are fined heavily by the antitrust agency because it is considered anticompetitive.

The proposed amendments will allow RPM under certain conditions, more specifically if it “enhances consumer welfare.” It will still be generally illegal; firms need to prove that it does indeed help consumers if they want to get permission for the practice.

The FTC guidelines prescribe specific review criteria for the enforcement of Article 29 (1) of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act on resale price maintenance, or RPM. For this purpose, it received public comments for about three weeks from May 23 to June 13.

The current guidelines treat minimum RPM as illegal per se regardless of whether there are justifiable reasons for using it, such as consumer welfare enhancement.

“The proposals state that the minimum RPM is highly likely to be deemed illegal as a matter of principle. However, when the consumer welfare enhancing effect of the minimum RPM concerned outweighs its anticompetitive effect, the minimum RPM can be permitted as an exception,” the agency has noted.

“The burden of proving reasons to justify the minimum RPM, such as consumer welfare enhancing effect, is on the (concerned) enterprise.”

Following the FTC’s move, there are some questions that need to be asked: Should RPM continue to remain illegal? And what will be the impact of the proposed amendments?

For many years, until antitrust agencies across the world struck it down, RPM used to be a common practice for manufacturers to set a minimum price for retailers to sell their goods. It ensured a minimum price of resale and avoided price competition.

Globally, public policy toward RPM has taken various forms.

It has been prohibited in Canada since 1951 as a restrictive practice against the public interest. In the United States resale price maintenance is authorized in some but not all the states, and also in interstate commerce between “fair-trade” states. In Sweden the practice has been prohibited since 1953. In the United Kingdom legislation introduced in 1964 prohibits RPM, except for classes of goods specifically exempted by a special court.

There are quite a few criticisms of RPM, which led it to being termed illegal.

It is argued that the system artificially inflates prices. Consumers lose out as they have less discretionary income to spend on other goods. Moreover, it is also allocatively inefficient as the price is likely to be above marginal cost.

By setting high prices, manufacturers will have no incentive to remain internationally competitive. RPM enables an easy profit margin in domestic markets, but the result is that inefficient manufacturers may stay in business and lose the market incentive to cut costs and become more efficient.

It also seems out of place today when the culture of shopping around on the Internet for the cheapest products is so widespread.

The likelihood of collusion is high, particularly in a market gravitating toward either manufacturers or retailers. By making RPM illegal, it prevents the formation of cartels.

On the other hand, the supporters of RPM say that it helps retailers to be more profitable. Manufacturers may also prefer it, because if the retailers are profitable then more of their goods will be sold.

It also prevents price wars among retailers as they will not start undercutting each other.

It has also been argued that RPM provides help for smaller retailers, who cannot buy in bulk, to remain profitable. On the other hand, it enables manufacturers to reward shops who promote their products through advertising. This will help firms invest more in future products.

Consumers benefit because they don’t have to waste time searching around for the best deal. They know the price will be the same regardless of where they buy it.

Moreover, its supporters note that minimum RPM is different from price-fixing by cartels. Classic price-fixing is typically referred to as horizontal price-fixing, as they are arrangements between competitors operating at the same level of distribution. On the other hand, vertical arrangements are those between businesses operating at distinct levels of distribution.

In price-fixing, the initiators are competitors who realize that they will be better off if they minimize group competition. With minimum RPM, a single manufacturer influences downstream retailers’ behavior through an increased markup, so they will compete more aggressively on nonprice dimensions, even as competition among manufacturers is not affected. This enhances intra-brand nonprice competition and overall inter-brand competition.

They note that minimum RPM is a business practice that can benefit companies and consumers in stark contrast to price-fixing conspiracies.

Incidentally, in recent years, there is increasing recognition of the potential competition benefits of RPM arrangements and many antitrust agencies are relaxing the rules to make them more flexible.

In 2007, the United States moved away from the per se prohibition. In December 2014, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission authorized an RPM agreement for the first time, recognizing that the supplier had limited market power and that the arrangement benefited consumers. The European Union guidelines also state that parties to an RPM agreement have the “possibility to plead an efficiency defense” under certain circumstances. In a number of jurisdictions in the region, RPM agreements are not singled out, but are subject to the same test as other vertical agreements.

South Korea is also now moving in the same direction, and it remains to be seen how flexible the FTC amendments will be.

Effectiveness of warnings on cigarette packs

2016-04-14T11:43:00.001+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

As expected, South Korean tobacco-makers and retailers have expressed their opposition to the Health Ministry’s new antismoking policies, which require all firms to fix health warning illustrations on their cigarette products. However, the ministry is not being swayed by their arguments and has refused to stand down.

The new measures, which will be implemented later this year, require health warnings consisting of text and images to be printed on the top 50 percent of the front panels of all cigarette packets. In addition, retailers have to display the front panel bearing the warning graphics to customers.

The graphics have to show tobacco’s harmful effects as well as health conditions that may be triggered by heavy smoking, including heart disease, lung cancer and possible birth defects.

The tobacco lobby claims the government is interfering with their rights to product design, as almost all cigarette packs will look more or less identical.

Dismissing their arguments, the Health Ministry has said that some 80 countries overseas require cigarette products to have warning illustrations, and of them, 63.8 percent make it mandatory for the warnings to appear in the upper portion of the packs.

From an economic standpoint there are many questions that need to be asked in this tug-of-war.

Have warning graphics discouraged smokers?

Have these policies affected the revenues of tobacco-makers in countries where this policy has been implemented?

What has been the economic impact on tobacco firms?

According to a recent report by the U.S.-based nonprofit organization Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, despite the numerous public reports on the risks of smoking, studies show that a large number of smokers have inadequate knowledge of the health effects of smoking.

“While some smokers generally know that tobacco use is harmful, they underestimate the severity and magnitude of the health risks and tend to perceive other smokers to be at greater risk for disease than themselves,” it notes

Knowledge of the health risks of smoking is even lower among people with lower income and fewer years of education because of limited access to information about the hazards of smoking.

Therefore, health warnings on cigarette packs have been found to inform smokers about the health hazards of smoking, encourage smokers to quit and prevent nonsmokers from starting to smoke.

Studies by the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, an international cohort study that surveys adult smokers in 19 countries, provides much of the evidence base for health warnings.

According to ITC research, adult and youth smokers report that large, comprehensive warnings reduce smoking consumption, increase motivation to quit and increase the likelihood that they will remain abstinent following an attempt to quit.

It shows graphic warnings are more effective than text-only warnings in leading people to think about quitting and deterring them from having a cigarette.

Further, ITC studies of smokers in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the U.S. revealed that graphic warnings are more effective than text-only warnings at making smokers think about quitting and deterring them from having a cigarette, and that larger, pictorial warnings are associated with increased quit attempts.

Evidence from Canada, the first country to implement graphic warnings, shows that after controlling for price, graphic warnings significantly decreased the odds of being a smoker and significantly increased the odds they would try to quit.

After Singapore introduced their graphic warnings in 2004, 28 percent of smokers surveyed reported smoking fewer cigarettes because of the warnings; 14 percent of the smokers surveyed said that they made it a point to avoid smoking in front of children; 12 percent said that they avoided smoking in front of pregnant women; and 8 percent said that they smoked less at home.

Since Thailand introduced their second set of pictorial labels in 2006, 44 percent of smokers said the warnings made them “a lot” more likely to quit over the next month.

In Brazil, after the introduction of new graphic warnings in 2002, 67 percent of smokers said the new warnings made them want to quit.

Given this, the Korean Health Ministry may be right to conclude that these measures will be effective in South Korea, home to almost 10 million smokers, where an estimated 57,000 die every year due to smoking-related diseases.

According to the World Health Organization, warning labels on tobacco products constitute the most cost-effective tool for educating smokers and nonsmokers alike about the health risks of tobacco use.

“In many countries, more smokers report getting information about the health risks of smoking from warning labels than any other source except television,” it notes.

Countering the claims by tobacco-makers, it says, “For decades, the tobacco industry has taken advantage of the package as a venue for creating positive associations for their product. The use of graphic pictures is an important means of replacing those positive associations with negative associations, which is far more appropriate given the devastating impact of tobacco products on global health.”

All these arguments seem valid, and if true, the tobacco-makers will certainly see a dent in their revenues once the policy is implemented.

However, I am not really convinced that it will lead to a dramatic fall in the number of smokers in Korea.

In 2014, the National Assembly approved an 80 percent increase in the price of cigarettes, from 2,500 won ($2.17) per pack to 4,500 won, in an effort to curb smoking. The new bill took effect on Jan. 1, 2015.

While in the initial few months, there was a decline in the revenue of tobacco-makers here -- as many smokers started experimenting with e-cigarettes -- it was short-lived, and the revenues have again increased a year later. The only beneficiary has been the government, whose tax kitty has swelled.

As noted by Maastricht University researchers in a recent article in Health Psychology Review, “Scary graphic warning labels are a popular tool among policymakers, but there is no clear consensus within the scientific community regarding their efficacy.”

The researchers looked at an initial selection of 295 publications exploring “fear appeals,” including graphic warning labels, then eliminated studies that had methodological problems.

“Not only is there little evidence that could support the use of graphic warning labels, but if you combine the evidence that is available, it turns out that at best, the use of graphic warning labels only has a small effect, while in the worst case, it may even backfire,” they noted.

It remains to be seen how the policy pans out in South Korea -- with a tobacco market widely perceived to be demand ineleastic -- but my bet is in the long run it will make little difference.

Tackle illegal political funding for sustainable growth

2016-03-02T21:34:00.003+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

With the general election in Korea just a couple months away, a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development appears to be timely.

The report, “Financing Democracy,” takes a comparative approach to examining how the funding of political parties and election campaigns has evolved, and how regulations across OECD member and partner countries have been established.

From an economic standpoint, this is important because it shows how the politician-business nexus can hamper economic growth. As long as it continues to exist, vested interests will rule supreme, rather than national interests.

In particular, the report assesses the risks of policy capture through the funding of political parties and electoral campaigns, identifies regulatory loopholes and implementation gaps in existing policies, and suggests a comprehensive approach to integrity, including issues such as lobbying and conflicts of interest.

Korean policymakers, in particular the National Election Commission, could do well to heed the recommendations the report makes. They should particularly focus on the cross-country comparison, as it features detailed country case studies of Canada, Chile, Estonia, France, Korea, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Brazil and India -- providing in-depth analyses of their political finance mechanisms and challenges in different institutional settings.

As the report notes, money in politics is a double-edged sword. It is a necessary component of the democratic process, enabling the expression of political support as well as competition in elections.

“Yet, the increasing concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to political and economic systems. If the financing of political parties and election campaigns is not adequately regulated, money may also be a means for powerful special interests to exercise undue influence, and ‘capture’ the policy process,” it notes.

For example, access to public procurement has been used by elected officials to “return the favor” to corporations that have made significant contributions to their campaigns or to exclude those that supported their opponents. While high-spending areas such as infrastructure and urban planning are particularly vulnerable to the risk of policy capture, any policymaking process can be a target of powerful special interests.

This sort of leverage has always been used in Korean elections, and to a larger extent in presidential elections. That the Four Rivers Restoration Project and energy diplomacy bulldozed through by former President Lee Myung-bak were mired in corruption immediately comes to mind.

The OECD report points out that countries’ experiences have revealed that several shortcomings still exist and are vulnerable to exploitation by powerful special interests.

Many countries struggle to define and regulate third-party campaigning in particular, to prevent the rechanneling of election spending through supposedly independent committees and interest groups.

At the moment, only a few countries, such as Canada, Ireland, the Slovak Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States have regulations for third-party campaigning. Significantly, Korea is missing from the list.

While Korea bans all anonymous donations to political parties, the information disclosed needs to be organized in an intelligible and user-friendly way to facilitate effective public scrutiny. Civil society organizations and the media can only be effective watchdogs if substantive political finance information is publicly available for their analysis. That is not the case here.

It is essential to tighten lobbying standards for sustainable and broad-based economic growth. While disclosure of private interests by decision makers is widely adopted by countries to manage conflict-of-interest situations and identify suspicious financial flows in public decision-making, verification and auditing of disclosure forms are not strictly practiced, more so in Korea.

As the report notes, since being enacted in 1965, the Political Fund Act in Korea has undergone 24 revisions for the purpose of guaranteeing the fair provision, and transparency, of political funds. The term “political funds” is defined as money, securities or goods provided to persons engaged in political activities, including political parties, in addition to expenses that they need to undertake political activities, including elections.

With the aim to guarantee the proper provision of political funds, secure the transparency of political funds and contribute to the sound development of democratic politics by preventing illegal political funding, the act lays out many basic principles.

In August 2005, the National Assembly revised the act so that all corporations and groups were fundamentally prohibited from making political contributions with the aim of initiating political reforms and addressing problems with illegal political funds.

However, is it strictly followed? It appears not, going by the regular news of slush funds by corporate honchos and raids by prosecutors.

Under the act, any political party may collect party membership fees. However, it does not set an upper limit on the fees that may be paid by an individual political party member.

When an association that raises political funds for a National Assembly member or a candidate to run in an election for public office submits a financial report, it is required to disclose the personal information of donors who make contributions exceeding a set amount. This rule is often flouted in Korea.

According to financial reports submitted by political parties in 2015, the total membership fees collected was $52 million, 25.8 percent of their total income of $201.3 million. South Korea’s ruling Saenuri Party collected $26.4 million in membership fees, which made up 27 percent of its total $97.6 million income. The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy party, now renamed The Minjoo Party of Korea, collected $21.2 million, making up 23.1 percent of its $91.7 million total income.

Since it was not an election year, the external funding for campaigning has obviously not been included. However, elections are due in April this year, and there will obviously be more funding details available at the end of the year.

Unlike Western political parties, party membership fees in Korea are too insignificant to be of importance for political party financing. It is no secret that the candidates receive massive funding from outside sources and under the table.

In the current context of economic crisis, there is a need for more transparency in public life. Particular attention should be paid to risks to the independence of political actors and public office holders as well as risks of conflicts of interest, even undue influence and corruption, related to money in the political sphere.

Political finance disclosure combined with adequate enforcement capacities has been recognized by international standards as a key policy instrument for promoting effective transparency and integrity in party and campaign financing. It is time the authorities in Korea started enforcing existing rules, and if necessary tightened the rules with regard to corporate funding of political parties.

The lack of transparency in political funding in Korea poses alarming risks of corruption. This is because private contributions effortlessly turn into a conduit for buying favors.

The current law punishes violators of political funding more severely, but the president’s special amnesty powers have long been abused. Many politicians and businessmen convicted of political funding fraud have been pardoned by whichever president is in power.

More transparent, competitive and realistic election campaign funding management is a must for the development of democracy. It will go a long way in ensuring the sustainable and broad-based economic development of Korea, which will propel it to an advanced-nation status.

Economic impact of terrorist strikes

2015-11-24T20:17:00.000+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The recent dastardly terrorist attacks in Paris shocked the world, with countries scampering to tighten security in preparation for any eventuality.

Even countries like Korea that have had no terror attacks from Islamic jihadists have gone on high alert, and the administration is tightening measures to make sure that no untoward incident happens.

While the nation’s security, human casualties and material losses are important aspects of these inhumane attacks, what should also be considered is the economic impact of a terrorist strike -- especially on countries like Korea, which are highly dependent on a few sectors.

A study released last month by ratings agency Moody’s shows that terrorist attacks significantly weaken economic activity, with long-lasting effects on the economy.

The study measures the impact of terrorism on a country’s economic growth, investment growth, government expenditure and cost of government borrowing, according to the report “Terrorism Has a Long-lasting Negative Impact on Economic Activity and Government Borrowing Costs.”

“For example, in 2013 the 10 countries most affected by terrorism took an immediate and significant hit to growth, dampening GDP between 0.5 and 0.8 percentage points,” the report noted. “Even worse is that the negative impact continues for years after the attack, taking up to five years for the effects to peter out.”

Investment growth takes an even greater immediate hit, with Moody’s estimating for the same episodes that investment growth declines between 1.3 and 2.1 percentage points.

During the time period studied, terrorism was concentrated in a few countries. For example, more than 60 percent of all incidents in 2013 were in just four countries, with the majority of attacks occurring in Iraq (24 percent) and Pakistan (19 percent).

Terrorist events also materially dampen economic activity and investment in mature economies, the report noted. Moody’s analyzed the economic impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., the 2004 bombings in Spain and the 2005 bombings in the U.K., all of which resulted in significant human casualties and infrastructure damage. In each case, the effect on economic activity and investment was significant and lasted several years.

Moody’s study consisted of a sample of 156 countries between 1994 and 2013.

In another interesting study published in the International Monetary Fund’s Finance & Development journal in June, the authors reach the same conclusion.

“The effects of terrorism can be terrifyingly direct,” it notes. “But terrorism inflicts more than human casualties and material losses. It can also cause serious indirect harm to countries and economies by increasing the costs of economic transactions.”

The article explores the economic burden of terrorism, focusing on three: national income losses and growth-retarding effects, dampened foreign direct investment, and disparate effects on international trade.

It notes that rich, large and diversified economies are better able to withstand the effects of terrorist attacks than small, poor and more specialized economies.

Unfortunately, Korea falls into the specialized category given its dependence on just a few engines of growth.

The article states that specialized economies may not have such resilience. Resources such as labor or capital may either flow from an affected sector to less productive activities within the country or move to another country entirely.

“A terrorist attack against such a nation is likely to impose larger and more lasting macroeconomic costs.”

Increased terrorism in a particular area tends to depress the expected return on capital invested there, which shifts investment elsewhere. This reduces the stock of productive capital and the flow of productivity-enhancing technology to the affected nation.

The authors analyzed 78 developing economies over the period 1984–2008 and found that on average a relatively small increase in a country’s domestic terrorist incidents per 100,000 people sharply reduced net foreign direct investment.

There was a similarly large reduction in net investment when the terrorist incidents originated abroad or involved foreigners or foreign assets in the attacked country.

The study suggests a troubling association between terrorism and foreign direct investment, both of which are crucial for emerging economies.

“It is generally believed that there are higher risks in trading with a nation afflicted by terrorism, which cause an increase in transaction costs and tend to reduce trade.”

Although terrorism may reduce trade in a particular product because it increases transaction costs, its ultimate impact may be either to raise or reduce overall trade.

Terrorism also influences immigration and immigration policy. The traditional gains and losses from the international movement of labor may be magnified by national security considerations rooted in a terrorism response, the authors note.

These above-mentioned studies hold useful lessons for Korea, which is highly dependent on trade, tourism and private consumption to sustain growth.

As recent history has shown, the impact of a local tragedy on consumer sentiment in Korea is huge.

In the aftermath of the Sewol ferry tragedy -- where more than 300 people died when it sank on April 16 last year, most of them students -- the economy suffered when private consumption dropped drastically.

It plunged the country into deep mourning, dragging down economic growth -- the slowest for more than a year -- partly because of sluggish consumption.

Consumer sentiment struggled to recover for months after the incident and the fallout lasted longer than expected.

With consumer sentiment remaining feeble, companies delayed investment due to uncertainty over the economic outlook, further depressing the economy.

More recently, the Middle East respiratory syndrome outbreak in Korea dealt a severe blow to the tourism sector and dampened consumer spending, almost crippling the economy.

Thirty-three people here died from MERS since it was first detected in May, making it the largest outbreak outside the Middle East.

South Korea’s export-led economy, which has been hit by slowing global demand for its goods, together with sluggish consumer demand at home, certainly does not need another tragedy.

It is right of the government to take rigorous steps to prevent terror attacks, even though many may consider it a little over the top. The Korean economy is currently very fragile and the administration is on the right path.

Take gov’t projections with truckloads of salt

2015-10-12T20:32:00.004+09:00

First published in Korea Herald.

A recent media statement issued by the Seoul Metropolitan Government that got wide coverage had me in splits.

According to the note that was issued to mark the 10th anniversary of the Cheonggyecheon Stream Restoration Project -- which removed an elevated freeway and transformed it into a lush walkway through the heart of Seoul -- which was faithfully picked up by all of local media without any question, 190 million tourists annually visit the landmark.

“Some 190 million Koreans and tourists are estimated to have visited the stream since its restoration by former President Lee Myung-bak on Oct. 1, 2005. The number is expected to exceed 200 million by early next year.”

These figures were obviously cooked up by some government official and can be understandable to a certain degree -- making extrapolations based on certain data collected over a few days every year are part and parcel of economic studies. But what took the cake was the detailed breakup of the nationalities of people who visited the stream.

We are told that from 2011 to August this year, 1.8 million tourists from China, 399,000 from Thailand, 256,000 from Japan, 133,000 from Taiwan and the U.S. and 290,000 from the rest of the world visited the stream.

There are no details of how the estimation was arrived at or the methodology used. But that didn’t deter the news from getting wide coverage.

First, keep in mind that the stream is close to 6 km long with 22 bridges and has various entry points. Ordinary residents (including expats) who work in the bustling business district have to cross the stream whenever they leave their office to go for appointments, coffee, lunch or transit back home.

Second, there is no single entry point and entrance gate where one can sit and take count of the number of people visiting -- to extrapolate based on the average of a few days.

Third, since there is no entrance or record keeping, how can one be sure that the person who strolls across the stream is from China, India, North America, Europe or Timbuktu?

But the SMG was confident enough to dish out the numbers and the local media was complacent enough to take it at face value.

The reason I have brought this up is not because I do not trust the government. But I do not blindly trust what the Korean government officials say with regard to economic projections of their pet projects. No one should.

Recently, the government designated Aug. 14, a friday, as a temporary holiday -- since the actual 70th Liberation Day fell on Saturday -- to increase domestic consumption. Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan grandly announced that it would increase domestic spending to around 1.3 trillion won ($1.1 billion).

“When this happens, local companies will also earn more and will require more staff. In turn, they’ll need to hire more employees. The holiday will encourage a ‘halo effect’ throughout South Korea,” he said.

Absurd as it was -- one extra day off generating so much economic benefit to pull the country out of its economic misery -- no one questioned him.

The government logic was that it would enhance the people’s nationalism and encourage domestic consumption. With the economy greatly affected by the MERS outbreak and other external factors, it could use a boost -- in the form of a nationwide holiday with plenty of activities and events in store for the public as well as tourists.

No questions asked … the local economic reporters dutifully reported it, and it was taken as gospel.

Same thing happened with the “Korea Black Friday,” which was announced with much fanfare.

Unimaginatively named after the U.S.’ big shopping day after Thanksgiving, the largest-ever sale event -- involving about 26,000 stores encompassing department stores and online shopping malls from Oct. 1 to 14 -- was supposed to “revitalize the economy.” Nothing of that sort has happened.

When it was announced, no questions were asked. All the questions are being raised now when it has proved to be a damp squib and the government is scrambling to dub it a success.

The same goes for the government policies to ease youth unemployment -- the nation’s jobless rate for people between the ages of 15 and 29 came to 8 percent in August, much higher than the headline unemployment rate of 3.4 percent -- by forcing companies to introduce the wage peak system.

The wage peak system advocated by the government calls for people nearing retirement age to accept lower wages with the money saved by this arrangement to be used to hire new employees.

Many companies have announced the launch of this new wage system under pressure, but no one is asking how effective it will be in getting over the main problem -- youth unemployment.

I think it is a knee-jerk reaction and is not the “magic formula” to get the youth jobs. More so, when the announcements by the chaebol are just a headline-grabbing tactic with very little changing on the ground. As was the case with the “shared growth” hyperbole.

This trend is so common -- as observed in my 11 years as a business journalist here -- that one has learned not to go by news reports about economic projections of benefits that policies will achieve.

Not that questions are never raised. The editorial writers do a splendid job doing that and pointing out the lapses. But if local economic news articles have to get credibility, the reporters on the ground need to ask the uncomfortable questions to government officials before parroting their statements -- as they do in other advanced democracies -- without wondering whether they will upset the powers that be.

One can start trusting the government economic projections only when reporters -- not just editorial writers -- start confronting government officials with uncomfortable queries and get their response instead of simply reporting their grand promises.

Does Korea benefit from FTA with EU?

2015-09-06T21:37:00.001+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

July 1 marked the fourth anniversary of the EU-Korea free trade agreement, which entered into force in 2011. It was touted as the first of a new generation of FTAs, going further than any previous agreements in lifting trade barriers. Being also the EU’s first trade deal with an Asian country, Korea was expected to benefit immensely.
The agreement eliminated duties for industrial and agricultural goods in a progressive, step-by-step approach. The majority of import duties were removed already when the FTA entered into force. On July 1, 2016, import duties will be eliminated on all products except for a limited number of agricultural products.
In addition to eliminating duties on nearly all trade in goods, the FTA addresses nontariff barriers to trade with a specific focus on the automotive, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and electronics sectors.
It also creates new opportunities for market access in services and investments, and includes provisions in areas such as competition policy, government procurement, intellectual property rights, transparency in regulation and sustainable development.
All this has definitely had an impact on EU-Korea economic relations, with bilateral trade growing immensely. More European goods are now more visible in stores and many European companies have entered the market. In fact, the EU was the largest investor last year, injecting a total of $6.5 billion, followed by the United States ($3.6 billion), Singapore ($1.7 billion) and China ($1.2 billion).
This would seem to indicate that the deal is a tremendous success. But is it?

Looking back

The Korea-EU FTA reflects the larger trade strategies both sides have pursued from the beginning of the 21st century.

Prior to the mid-2000s, both were reluctant to enter into bilateral FTAs, preferring to conduct trade through the World Trade Organization and through regional preferential trade arrangements. However, they changed track and have been pursuing FTAs aggressively since.

The EU was a pioneer in negotiating preferential trade arrangements and used it to anchor trade relations with neighboring countries, such as members of the European Free Trade Area and as a transition mechanism in trade relations with countries slated to accede to the EU. The EU also employed PTAs to preserve preferential trade relationships with former colonies among developing countries.
The FTA with Korea was part of a new wave of EU FTAs and part of an overall strategy referred to as Global Europe that the European Commission announced in 2006. The strategy was developed to respond to the challenges faced by EU members in a rapidly globalizing economy. An objective of that strategy was to work towards reducing tariff and nontariff barriers in trade and to liberalize markets for foreign investment.
As part of the Global Europe strategy, the EU has engaged in FTA negotiations with the objective that the FTAs are more appropriate vehicles to address more trade complex issues and can serve as building blocks toward a more robust multilateral trading system.
The Global Europe strategy sets down two main criteria for selecting FTA partners: (1) that the partner country offers sufficient market potential and (2) a sufficient level of growth opportunities that would result from the removal of tariff and nontariff barriers as a result of the FTA. Based on these criteria, along with the fact that Korea had negotiated an agreement with the United States, the European Commission identified South Korea as a priority country for an FTA.
As for Korea, for nearly a decade, it was transforming itself into an FTA hub in Northeast Asia. Signing a network of FTAs was a key part of the national economic strategy of President Lee Myung-bak as well as his predecessor Roh Moo-hyun. Both presented FTAs as necessary for advancing Korea’s economic well-being.
Ongoing competitive pressure from Japanese firms, increased competition from Chinese enterprises and the rapid aging of the Korean workforce heightened the sense of urgency to boost national competitiveness.
President Lee set a goal of building a “free trade network” that by 2014 would enable over 70 percent of Korean exports to enjoy duty-free access. He explicitly tried to diversify the composition of Korea’s FTA partners, simultaneously negotiating FTAs with large advanced economies as well as with natural resource-rich developing countries.
The Korea-EU FTA also fit into his goal of creating the “Global Korea” by expanding Korea’s engagement with and presence in the international community.
As a result, negotiations were launched in 2007, and after more than two years of negotiations, both sides finally signed an agreement on October 6, 2010. Both the Korean National Assembly and the EU Parliament have ratified the agreement, and it went into effect on July 1, 2011.
In 2009, the year preceding the official signing of the deal, Korea accounted for 2 percent of EU merchandise exports, ranking 12th as an export market, and accounted for 3 percent of EU merchandise imports, ranking ninth as a source of EU imports.
On the other hand, the much larger EU market of 492 million people with a gross domestic product of $14.4 trillion was much more important to Korea. In 2009, the EU was the second-largest market for Korean merchandise exports, with a 13 percent share of total Korean exports, second to China with its 24 percent share.
The EU was the third-largest source of Korean imports in 2009 with a 10 percent share of Korean merchandise imports behind China with a 17 percent share and Japan with a 15 percent share. In contrast, the United States accounted for 10 percent of Korean exports and 9 percent of Korean imports.
Among the EU member countries, Korea’s largest trading partners were and continue to be Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Plain statistics

In 2010, a year before the implementation of the FTA, bilateral trade amounted to $92.23 billion, with Korea having a trade surplus -- exports stood at $53.51 billion and imports from EU at $38.72 billion. By 2014, bilateral trade showed a growth of 23.65 percent to reach 114.05 billion. However, everything is not so rosy. Korea now has a trade deficit -- exports of 51.66 billion and imports of 62.39 billion.
This clearly indicates that Korean companies have not been able to take advantage of the deal to the same extent as EU companies.
This trend is also acknowledged by the European Commission in its annual report on the trade deal submitted to the European parliament and Council in March.
It noted that the EU’s share in Korea’s total imports from the world increased from 9 percent before the FTA to 11 percent in the third year of the FTA implementation. Over the same period of time, the EU‘s share in total exports from Korea declined from 11 percent to 9 percent.
In terms of EU exports, the most important categories of products were: “Machinery and appliances,” accounting for almost 34 percent of total EU exports to Korea; followed by “transport equipment,” where exports increased by over 56 percent and represent 16 percent of total EU exports to Korea.
“Chemical products”, where exports increased by 9 percent in the third year of FTA implementation, accounting for over 12 percent of total EU exports.
Other categories of products for which EU exports increased significantly since July 2011 are “mineral products,” “wood” and “pearls and precious metals.”
As far as EU imports from Korea are concerned, the main product categories are: “Machinery and appliances” accounting for 36 percent of EU imports from Korea -- they have declined by 20 percent since the FTA took effect; and “Transport equipment” accounting for 26 percent of total EU imports from Korea, showing fluctuating growth.
Significant increases were noted in plastics, mineral and chemical products.
The report also notes that EU exports of motor vehicles to Korea increased by 90 percent, accounting for 9 percent of total EU exports to Korea. On the other hand, EU imports of motor vehicles from Korea grew by 53 percent. Motor vehicles account for 11 percent of total EU imports from Korea.
EU exports of car parts to Korea increased by 6 percent since the 12-month period before the FTA, whereas EU imports from Korea of car parts increased by over 20 percent. Over the three-year period, the respective imports from the rest of the world increased by merely 3 percent.
That is as far as product classification goes, which clearly indicates that Korea’s exports are not really much diversified.
In fact another set of data also shows some disappointing results. If we look at the figures for the first half of the year starting from 2011, something strange can be seen. Bilateral trade between Korea and EU in the first six months of 2015 is actually less than the first half of 2011, before the trade deal was implemented. In 2011, bilateral trade amounted to 53.64 billion, while it registered 51.64 billion this year.
Taking a closer look, we can see that it is Korean exports to the EU that have drastically gone down, while EU imports into Korea have increased.
This is worrisome for Korean companies, which shows that the economic slump has affected them more than their counterparts in the EU. This certainly needs to be investigated by scholars.
In fact, according to a recent survey of 360 major companies in 18 EU member countries by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, more than seven out of 10 European companies are taking advantage of the FTA to promote their business opportunities.
The awareness of the Korea-EU FTA among European companies is far higher than that for the EU’s free trade deals with other countries.
Comparable figures were 35 percent for the EU-South Africa FTA, 34.7 percent for the EU-Mexico FTA, and 28.6 percent for the EU-Chile FTA, the survey showed.
About 34 percent of the respondents said they have increased imports of Korean products since the implementation of the bilateral free trade deal.

More efforts needed

Clearly, the Korean government has its task cut out for it to ensure that the effects of the trade deal benefit both sides. At present it appears to be one-sided.
Moreover, Korea’s exports to the EU are concentrated into a few sectors, such as ships, automobiles and electronics. These three sectors represent almost 60 percent of Korea’s total exports to the EU, in contrast to exports of other countries that are much more diversified. This requires attention.
As noted in a report by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, in order to take full advantage of the FTA, it is necessary to not only increase the utilization rate of tariff preferences, but also improve the business environment and productivity and upgrade industrial structures in Korea.
“With more countries committing themselves to comprehensive FTAs with the EU and the U.S. and Korea relocating more of their production bases abroad, it is more likely that exports from domestic production will be replaced by overseas production. As a result, Korea’s relative advantage as an early comer in the FTA is likely to be obsolete. In this context, it is necessary to increase the utilization rate of the FTAs in the short run and to use the FTA as occasions to strengthen industrial competitiveness in the long run,” the KIEP noted.

Pros and cons of Korea’s minimum wage law

2015-09-06T21:32:00.002+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The minimum wage in Korea has been set at 6,030 won ($5.30) for next year after weeks of debate, although the labor unions boycotted the government-led talks on the final day.
Labor union representatives walked out of a meeting of the Minimum Wage Council ― a trilateral committee of employers, employees and labor market experts to set the minimum wage through discussion ― on Wednesday. They were upset with the suggestion that there should be a cap on the increase in the minimum wage. However, the council went ahead and finalized an increase on the following day.

The Minimum Wage Act stipulates that at least one-third of all representatives on the council can decide on the rate if any party refuses to attend the negotiations more than once.
The new rate will be notified by the government on Aug. 5 after taking into consideration all objections to the finalized rate.
In Korea, the minimum wage is the lowest allowable gross wage per hour, regardless of employment status or nationality. There are some exceptions to this rule: Businesses that only employ family members or relatives living in the same residence; domestic service users; and seamen who are governed by the seamen act.
The unions initially demanded a 79 percent rise from the current minimum hourly wage of 5,580 won to 10,000 won, while employers ― represented by the Korea Employers Federation ― were pushing for a freeze. The unions lowered their demand to 8,100 won, and refused to budge from this stance, despite opposition from others on the council.
The minimum wage in Korea was raised by 7.1 percent this year from 5,210 won in 2014 ― it was 600 won in 1989 when the government formed the wage council. The latest hike, therefore, marks an 8.1 percent hike.
For comparison purposes, the minimum wage in the United States is $7.50, Japan $6.40 and the U.K. $10.
The KEF argues that the minimum wage has risen too rapidly and needs to be stabilized, voicing concerns over possible job losses and soaring production costs. On the other hand, the unions maintain that a hike would curb the nation’s income inequality and boost consumer spending.
So, who among them is right?
At face value, the logic of the unions seems right, as minimum wages protect workers from exploitation by employers and reduce poverty. Legal minimum wages are a government’s most direct policy lever for influencing wage levels, especially for workers with a weak bargaining position.
They also serve as a basic labor standard, alongside working-hours regulations and related provisions to ensure basic job-quality standards. And supporting low-wage earners is widely seen as important for promoting inclusive growth.
However, many economists do not think so. They believe that minimum wage laws cause unnecessary hardship for the very people they are supposed to help.

The argument is that while the law can set wages, it cannot guarantee jobs. The experience in most countries with a minimum wage law is that low-skilled workers are often priced out of the labor market. This is because employers typically are not willing to pay a worker more than the value of the additional product that he or she produces.
In fact, there are numerous studies using aggregate time-series data from a variety of countries that have found that minimum wage laws reduce employment.
If employers consider the wage floor too high, Workers whose productivity is valued less than the mandated wage will find jobs only in occupations not covered by the law or with employers willing to break it.
In Korea, we already have seen many highly publicized cases in recent months where nonregular and part-time workers were paid below the mandated wages until a public outcry made them reconsider.
In addition to making jobs hard to find, minimum wage laws may also harm workers by changing how they are compensated by cutting fringe benefits which are an important part of the total compensation package for many low-wage workers.
Studies have also found that the minimum wage increases generally redistribute income among low-income families rather than moving it from those with high incomes to those with low incomes.
As the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has noted in a recent policy brief, minimum wages are common but controversial. Currently, 26 out of 34 OECD countries have statutory minimum wages.
“Views differ about whether such support is best provided through minimum wages, or closely related policies, such as government transfers,” it noted.
In recent years, policymakers in many countries have adjusted minimum wages in the context of high and increasingly persistent unemployment, stagnant or even declining average wages and, frequently, falling incomes especially among the poorest families.
“While minimum wages are intended to support low-wage workers, the cost of employing them can be at the heart of concerns that legal minimum might reduce employment, or damage the international competitiveness of domestic firms relying on low-skilled labor,” the brief noted
Further, tax burdens too have to be taken into account.

Even at the very bottom of the wage ladder, taxes and social levies can strongly reduce take-home pay. At the same time, taxes and other mandatory nonwage labor costs also push up the cost of employing minimum-wage workers.
By having an impact on labor costs and workers’ take-home pay, the overall tax burden has implications for how well minimum wages perform at supporting low-wage workers, while avoiding significant job losses.
Given the overwhelming evidence in numerous economic studies, the Korean trade unions should have softened their stringent position and worked out an increase to their satisfaction. By boycotting the talks, they did not do justice to young people and low-skilled workers.
While it is impractical to do away with the minimum wage, given the social realities in Korea, the government should also step in and ease the concerns of businesses.
Some countries have adopted specific measures to reduce the gap between the amounts an employer pays and the take-home pay that the worker receives. To lower employers’ costs, or to reduce risks of employment losses following minimum hikes, some have introduced tax rebates for firms employing minimum wage workers ― something the Korean government should consider.
More importantly, there needs to be efficient coordination between minimum wage policies and other redistribution measures by the government, notably taxes and transfers ― that are lacking in Korea.
These small steps could go a long way in protecting the interests of businesses as well as ordinary workers, given that the economy is struggling to recover and unemployment continues to be a major concern.

Impact of ARFP on Korea’s financial services

2015-06-17T12:16:00.003+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

A very important development in the first week of June that will bring huge benefits to the financial services industry in Korea has gone largely unnoticed here.

Finance officials and regulators from six Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation members, including Korea, who are leading the development of the Asia Region Fund Passport concluded a week of meetings in Singapore to iron out the details of the proposal and announced that it was on track to be launched in 2016.

The countries ― also including Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand ― aim to cut down on incompatible or overlapping financial regulations that may hinder the marketing of managed funds between participating economies.

Six other APEC members ― Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam ― are also closely following the discussions on the rules and arrangements, hoping to join the initiative.

So what exactly is the ARFP, and why is it important?

Two years ago, finance ministers from Australia, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore signed a statement of intent on the establishment of the ARFP. Accordingly, it aims to “facilitate the growth and competitiveness of financial markets in the region and the fund management industry, creating a common framework that has the effect of reducing regulatory inconsistency and overlap faced by collective investment scheme operators seeking to offer collective investment schemes in multiple economies.”

Once it is established, fund managers in a participating economy will be able to offer a single product across multiple markets, which will result in a larger client base that will grow the fund size sufficiently to realize economies of scale.

At the same time, more competition, a higher number of funds and funds under management will help keep the fund sizes at an optimal level so as not to erode fund performance. Investors will also benefit from improved efficiency as direct access to offshore funds results in the elimination of an extra layer of fees and commissions charged by local operators.

According to the APEC Policy Support Unit, once the ARFP is fully up and running, it could save the region’s investors $20 billion annually in fund management costs, offer higher investment returns at the same or lower degrees of risk and encourage the establishment of locally domiciled funds that could create 170,000 jobs within five years.

In its study of the potential costs and benefits, the APEC unit said that following the introduction of the ARFP, using a conservative assumption of 20 percent increase per annum in assets under management over 5 years, almost all the involved Asian funds markets would achieve better efficiency.

Currently investors in some Asian economies have limited products available to them. This is due partly to strict regulations in those economies that have discouraged fund managers from distributing foreign funds in local markets. Without a broad range of foreign products to choose from, investors have to place the bulk of their funds in local products.

International portfolio diversification can facilitate the possibility of reducing risks only if values of cross-market correlations of returns are low. The benefits of a more optimal portfolio can be transferred to investors in the form of better returns for risks.

The ARFP can also bring significant benefits to the wider regional and global economies by supporting the recycling of savings toward productive investments that are critical for the region’s growth.

The benefits can also extend beyond financing investment needs. The ARFP can introduce to local funds industries foreign technical know-how, competitive pricing and higher standards of disclosure and performance. These promote efficiencies in the local fund industries, resulting in greater global competitiveness of the Asian funds management industry, the APEC unit has noted.

One of the measurable contributions of the ARFP to the economy is the potential increase in employment numbers in the funds industries in Asia. An essential feature of the ARFP is that it will increase the demand for funds to be domiciled in Asia. This would offer increased job opportunities, not only to manage the funds but also to service the fund structure.

What does it mean for the asset management industry in Korea?

Korea has a mature funds management industry. The first contractual-type equity investment scheme was introduced in 1970, after the promulgation of the Securities Investment Trust Business Act in 1969. The development of the funds industry experienced a setback during the Asian financial crisis in 1997-98. However, it has since quickly recovered.

Assets under management ― the sum of fund assets and assets under discretionary management ― by the 86 asset management companies totaled 685 trillion won ($616 billion) at the end of 2014, up 9.1 percent or 57 trillion won from 628 trillion won a year earlier. Fund assets increased 14 percent to 382 trillion won. Publicly offered funds increased 7.4 percent to 204 trillion won, while private equity funds increased 22.8 percent to 178 trillion won. Discretionary assets increased 3.4 percent to 303 trillion won during the same period.

The aggregate net income of the asset management companies for 2014 came to 424.8 billion won, up 14.1 percent from 372.4 billion won during the last year. A total of 20 companies reported net losses for the period.

However, despite its success, the funds industry is fragmented and markedly skewed toward equity that dominates the total funds’ AUM.

While regulators in Korea have been keen to pursue market liberalization, the industry still faces challenges. For instance, industry analysts have noted that the sale of offshore funds is facing tight regulatory hurdles, including preferential tax treatment for onshore versus offshore funds. As a result, the presence of foreign funds in Korea has been relatively weak.

The ARFP is a therefore a very good initiative to give a boost to the industry in Korea.

However, the Financial Supervisory Service should also keep in mind the risks that are involved with the creation of the ARFP.

As in any cross-border financing solution, shocks in one market can be amplified and transmitted to other markets very quickly. This can become worse given the enhanced interconnectedness and efficiencies of the transmission and intermediation process currently available.

While the deepening integration of financial markets will help promote the financing of investment, care should be taken to see that they do not accentuate the risks associated with large and volatile capital flows.

The FSS should ensure that Korea’s regulations and market practices are upgraded and harmonized in tune with regional standards. It should also keep investor protection foremost in mind, minimizing systemic vulnerabilities and maximizing market transparency before finalizing the plans to rollout the ARFP.

Stock price limits and circuit breakers

2015-05-27T19:51:00.000+09:00

First Published in The Korea Herald.

Starting next month, the Korea Exchange will expand price limits and introduce market-wide circuit breakers that should provide some relief for stock traders and retail investors.

Price limits and circuit breakers are used by many stock exchanges and regulators to counter severe price movements in financial markets, and Korea is no exception. Price limits are maximum percentages or values that a security or derivative contract can rise or fall in a trading day. Circuit breakers are trading halts triggered by sharp price movements, and can be imposed on either an individual financial instrument or the market as a whole. They were first adopted by the New York Stock Exchange and other U.S. exchanges in 1988.

Circuit breakers had been recommended by the U.S. Presidential Task Force in the aftermath of the stock market crash on Oct. 19, 1987, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 508 points, or 22.7 percent. These circuit breakers were not triggered until a decade later, on Oct. 27, 1997.

Korea’s bourse operator has announced that, starting June, the price limit is set to rise to 30 percent, while the circuit breaker would halt trading for 20 minutes if the benchmark index falls 8 percent and 15 percent and shut down the daily session if the index plunges more than 20 percent.

Currently, stocks listed on the main KOSPI and tech-heavy KOSDAQ markets are allowed to move within a 15 percent price range from the previous session’s closing price. It is the first time in 17 years that the daily price cap is being revised. The existing circuit breaker allows the bourse operator to suspend trading for 20 minutes once a day if the market cap falls by 10 percent and is not triggered after 2:20 p.m.

“Although the current price limit system has contributed to stabilizing the stock market, it has hampered effective price setting by preventing the latest information from being immediately reflected in share prices,” officials of KRX were quoted as saying by the media.

It is hoped that the expanded price range will help the market better set the appropriate price in accordance with corporate values, he noted.

There is no doubt that a fair and orderly trading environment is key to maintaining a vibrant and well-functioning securities market.

Market interventions are aimed at preventing potential market disorder and restoring order in a trading environment that may be under stress. By providing a break or limit in trading, interventions are intended to provide the opportunity for information to be disseminated widely and equally, for market participants to reconsider their trading decisions rationally in light of new information and to serve as a signal of potential order imbalances in the system.

However, there is no consensus on whether price limits and circuit breakers are effective tools during crises. To date, there is still no convincing evidence of their potency.

Let us take a brief look at the two different schools of thought on the validity of these market invention systems.

As noted earlier, supporters say the systems provide investors with a cooling-off period to calm fears or provide time to digest news when there are steep declines in the markets; reduce market volatility and protect investors from excessive market volatility; provide time to restore the equilibrium between buyers and sellers; and provide the opportunity for increased information flow.

Those against market intervention, however, argue that they prevent investors from engaging in equity transactions that reflect their assessments of economic events, trapping investors in their positions. They find the tools counterproductive as they drain liquidity and diminish market depth.

The tools accelerate price movements toward the pre-announced limits as market participants alter their strategies and trade in anticipation of a market halt. In addition, they induce panic and uncertainty if the markets shut down suddenly and scare away the buying power necessary to turn a selling panic around.

The other arguments are that they are unfair to market participants with positions that benefit from volatility and deprive market participants of opportunities to raise liquidity to meet other obligations and lead to a chain of defaults.

In essence, price limits and circuit breakers deprive market participants of the opportunities to transfer risk and interrupt the price discovery process, two key market functions.

Economists have pointed out that one way to tackle this is to have the right of a discretionary halt built into the regulatory system, but use it rarely or sparingly as a deterrent. Such a deterrent would be just that ― a deterrent.

This is because, without a breaker, the price is continuously available as a barometer for investor beliefs. However, with a breaker in place, the price simply ceases to be displayed. This causes uncertainty among market participants as to what the asset is truly worth. The execution price uncertainty can also lead to misallocation of resources and the bearing of unwanted and avoidable risk.

Another alternative to such halts are “sidecars,” which have been used in the U.S. exchanges. Market orders are batched over short intervals and then matched against limit-order books, and move from a continuous auction to batch orders during extreme market moves, which would potentially slow trading down and calm markets. These procedures do not cause total cessation of trade and price discovery.

In any case, the market intervention mechanisms have been in used in many advanced countries, and one does not expect the Korean regulators to ditch the automatic system to shield the market from volatility.

It is good to know that the KRX will adopt a wider range of measures to prevent excessive market fluctuation and step up market monitoring in the first month to detect any suspicious trading activities. It is also preparing changes in the electronic trading system in cooperation with brokerage houses to introduce new functions to curb excessive stock fluctuations.

Given that, since the rules are being eased, it is absolutely necessary that the bourse operator strictly monitors trading, not just for one month, but continuously. The regulator cannot afford to let its guard down.

The stock market is an important barometer of the aggregate economy. A growing stock market signals to policymakers that sentiment is positive and investors expect economic conditions to improve. Appropriate policy action can then be taken. In a similar vein, a falling stock market signals that market participants expect bleak economic conditions. Policymakers may then take action to stimulate growth and perhaps contain inflation.

Therefore, it is very important for the stock market to function efficiently without any hiccups and the regulator should make all efforts to ensure it.

Inadequate steps to boost foreign investment in Korea

2015-05-17T19:43:00.004+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

Last week, the Korean government announced plans to attract more foreign direct investment by more than 50 percent in three years by easing regulations and focusing support on five sectors, including cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement that industrial materials, petroleum products and food processing sectors would also be given strong support through regulatory changes.

Korea received FDI pledges totaling $19 billion last year, up sharply from $14.5 billion in 2013, and now aims to increase the amount to $30 billion in 2017.

Despite the sharp rise in pledges last year, South Korea still ranks low among high-income countries in the accumulated amount of FDI compared to the size of its economy.

Moreover, according to Industry Ministry data released on April 29, the total amount of reported FDI dropped 29.8 percent in the first quarter of this year to $3.55 billion compared to last year. On an arrival basis, the amount fell by 16.4 percent to $3.15 billion.

According to the UNCTAD 2014 World Investment Report, South Korea ranks No. 7 among the most attractive countries of South and East Asia for transnational companies.

South Korea’s appeal in terms of FDI is the result of the country’s fast economic development and the specialization of its industries in new information and communication technologies. However, the lack of general transparency in regulations continues to be a major concern for foreign investors. Despite the best intentions of the government, foreign investors remain dissatisfied with the ground situation and feel that there is room for improvement if Korea is to raise its competitiveness.

Therefore, it is interesting to see how foreign investment policies have changed over the years.

Policy developments

Korea’s liberalization of foreign direct investment policies was implemented in four stages. Between 1962 and 1979, foreign investment was made mainly through international commercial loans and loans from international foreign institutions like the World Bank, rather than through foreign direct investment, because there were concerns that foreign investors might take control of domestic industries. As a result, both these types of foreign loans constituted more than 80 percent of the total foreign capital in Korea.

The introduction of foreign capital reached its limit in the 1980s due to the second oil crisis and the declaration of a moratorium by developing countries. With this in mind, Korea began to lay the foundations of an FDI policy, by eliminating the 50 percent ceiling on foreign ownership of businesses in various sectors.

Since establishing the “Five-Year Plan for FDI Liberalization” in June 1993, the Korean government has revised and complemented the plan in a continued effort to further open its markets to foreign investors. With the launch of the WTO system in 1995 and South Korea’s entry into the OECD in 1996, the country responded to the changing circumstances of the global economy, while enhancing the competitiveness of domestic industries and expediting the opening of its markets.

Policies for facilitating FDI have been promoted, with foreign ownership of existing stocks permitted in April 1995 and “friendly” M&As in February 1997. In 1997, the Asian financial crisis affected Korea badly. Against this backdrop, the Korean government quickly responded to solve the structural problems of the Korean economy, which were seen as causing the crisis.

Recognizing that attracting FDI was a shortcut to overcoming the economic difficulties, the government actively promoted policies to encourage foreign investment, while drastically liberalizing FDI and portfolio investment. In May 1998, ceilings on foreign ownership of the companies which were listed on the stock market or registered on the KOSDAQ were lifted, and hostile foreign M&As with domestic companies were completely liberalized, thereby allowing foreigners the right to freely own stakes in Korean businesses.

In June, foreign land ownership was totally guaranteed, and all types of business categories, except two, were opened to foreign investment. As a result, the liberalization rate reached 99.8 percent as of December 2001.

These government policies designed to liberalize foreign investment led to the securing of foreign currency and contributed to strengthening the foundation of the national economy by helping Korea to create jobs and overcome the financial crisis sooner than expected. Since then, there have been a series of reforms and the economy has become liberalized.

The government even formulated ambitious plans to make the country a Northeast Asian business hub.

In 2002, the Korean government announced a new “business hub strategy” that differed significantly from the traditional strategy in two ways: First, the essence of the hub strategy was to also harness the business opportunities of the neighboring countries; at the same time, it aimed to produce high value-added goods and services by bringing world-class multinational corporations, foreign capital and technology, as well as specialized professionals, into Korea.

It was expected that by developing as the “business hub of Northeast Asia,” the Korean economy would prosper in the context of a world economy characterized by deepening globalization and rising regionalism.

The government’s view was that to be a regional business hub, Korea must become a logistics hub, a hub of multinational corporations and a financial hub in the region, by using its geoeconomic advantage and creating a business-friendly environment.

Following President Kim Dae-jung’s announcement of a basic policy direction to make Korea a Northeast Asian business hub in January 2002, the Korean government’s action plan for that aim was agreed on in the following July.

A “Draft Law on Designation and Administration of Special Economic Zones,” a key legislation of the business hub plan, was submitted to the National Assembly in October 2002.

The plan was not just a vision. The Korean government backed it up by announcing a concrete action plan, then submitting a draft law for special economic zones.

This new vision, radically improving the market environment, was listed as one of President Roh Moo-hyun’s 10 national agenda. In particular, he established a task force to develop and implement the new vision, specializing in the three main sectors ― logistics, finance and industry. The logistics dimension was considered crucial given Korea’s strategic location between Japan and China.

The administration also took steps improve the business and operating environment for multinational corporations through socioeconomic and institutional reforms such as labor market conditions, chaebol, liberalization of immigration policy and tax benefits at the national level.

In other words, the attraction of multinationals became a top priority for the Korean economy and the major component of Korea’s new globalization strategy. Since then, many policies have been implemented to encourage foreign investors.

President Lee Myung-bak’s administration continued this policy of attracting foreign investors and frequently announced that Korea strove to be the business hub of Northeast Asia.

In effect, it is now 13 years since the strategy was first announced and many enabling policies have been introduced.

Today, the Korean government offers various incentives to foreign-invested companies that have great potential to contribute to the Korean economy. These include tax support, cash grants and site location support.

Korea provides various types of support for foreign investments in industrial complexes, which are designated and developed strategically for industrial development. Likewise, foreign investment zones, free trade zones, and free economic zones in Korea offer favorable investment environments to foreign investors.

Foreign investment zones are designated to attract foreign investment. The zones are largely divided into two types: complex and individual. Complex-type foreign investment areas are sections of national or local industrial complexes that have been designated for small- and medium-sized foreign-invested companies, while an individual-type zone is designated as the individual location of a foreign-invested company.

Despite the best intentions of the government, foreign investors feel that more changes are required if Korea is to compete with emerging economies like China and India.

So then, what is the reality on the ground?

Competitiveness ranking

As we have seen, recent reports on competitiveness continue to note that Korea still has some way to go.

Korea dropped in global competitiveness in 2014 for the second year running to 26th out of 144 economies in the annual report by the World Economic Forum. Korea ranks especially poorly in indicators for institutions, which gauges the severity of regulations, at 82nd, labor market efficiency at 86th, and financial market development at 80th.

Korea “loses further ground in two of the three areas in which historically it has performed poorly. It now ranks 82nd (down eight places) in the institutions pillar and 86th (also down eight) in the labor market efficiency category. Although stable, the financial market development pillar remains a sore point (80th, up one), preventing Korea from closing the competitiveness gap with the three other Asian Tigers,” the report said.

If the government is serious about luring more investment and competing in Asia for investors, it has much left to do in terms of improving the business environment and raising South Korea’s rank in all the parameters. Periodically announcing that steps are being taken to lure foreign investors is not enough.

Attracting foreign investors

There is no doubt that the Korean government’s attitude toward foreign direct investment is positive, and senior policymakers clearly realize the value of FDI. However, many international surveys by private-sector organizations have repeatedly shown that foreign investors are put off by the country’s complicated and overlapping regulations in areas such as foreign exchange transactions and the employment of foreign nationals.

A majority of foreign investors feel that the main problems in the country are a lack of openness and transparency of laws and regulations, a rigid labor market and unstable labor relations and less internationalized human resources than Hong Kong and Singapore.

Most importantly, a majority feel that English proficiency is one of major stumbling blocks for Korea to become a business hub.

As the surveys point out, despite the various liberalization and promotion efforts by the Korean government, internal barriers, namely, domestic regulations and transparency problems, remain.

They feel that Korea lacks a real long-term development project for the future of its economy. The Northeast Asia Hub project, which appears to be Korea’s only strategic response to counter the rise of China, is an “ad-hoc” initiative. The danger is that the country is destined to gain a role as a logistics “niche” by taking advantage of Korea’s geographical position between China, Japan and the Russian Far East, but miss out on greater and wider economic opportunities.

The piecemeal opening of several localized FEZs within Korea is far from sufficient to make FDI here an alternative option to FDI in China. China itself has FEZs in so many cities with attractive conditions supported by its very strong economic growth and the usual low costs.

The only real long-term option for Korea would be to turn the entire country into a free trade zone: This move would transform Korea into the “Free Trade Hub” of Northeast Asia by taking advantage of its value-added high-tech sectors and first-class infrastructure and creating a very competitive services platform for the surrounding countries following the examples of Singapore and Dubai. This is a proposal that China can never offer because it is too large to consider such an economic model.

Investors also find that flexible service support from governments and bureaucrats is a lot less satisfying compared to those from other governments in the region. The implementation of FDI by other governments has a high level of flexibility in helping foreign companies to establish their businesses. Their FDI promotion program and marketing implementations are also very active and supportive to those investors. On the contrary, many investors doubt that the cooperative actions undertaken by government ministries, agencies and provincial governments in Korea are productive or efficient.

Basically, there are too many administrative procedures and documents that take too long. Investors can get only superficial support from the government. The role of each ministry and provincial government should be clearly specified so that conflicts of interest do not arise between the central government and provincial governments.

In the worst case, the conflict between each bureau and the provincial government may cause a negative image of Korea among investors because the credibility of the market will deteriorate. Investors also wish the government and agencies would work more efficiently with improved communication skills and a clearer vision.

One common complaint by most investors is the lack of consistency and reliability of regulation. They feel that Korea’s regulatory framework is still heavily mired in red tape and a lack of coordination between administrations. This problem is worsened by the administration’s poor external communication of laws and regulations as well as by the scarcity and lack of precision in English translations of official documents.

Greater attention should be paid to streamline all administrations toward more transparency and a more “user-friendly” service with all rules and regulations in all industries and sectors duly translated into English and easily available.

The list of regulations ranges from daily audit reports to highly complex certification, testing and bidding procedures. The interpretation of regulations is an even bigger issue since it leaves room for bureaucrats to maintain their old habits of meddling in the economy ― with a particular eye on foreign companies. One favorite tool to go after foreign companies is a tax or regulatory audit.

Further, no matter how comprehensive or good a country’s laws may be, they will only have limited effectiveness if law-enforcement agencies cannot or will not enforce them fairly and consistently. When laws lose their efficacy, they are no longer respected as rules of behavior. The complaints reflect a perceived lack of consistency in the enforcement of the law, which itself is a factor that contributes to corruption.

Foreign businesses are sensitive to the level of corruption since it is a source of business risk. If laws are enforced based on the whims of law-enforcement agencies, they can hardly be expected to retain their efficacy or be respected by society. Excessive government regulation is also a major source of corruption. Unnecessary regulation is the product of bureaucratic formalism commonly found in underdeveloped administrative systems. There are so many complicated regulations in Korea administered at the discretion of inconsistent officials that most people find it impossible to observe all the rules. In addition, officials apply regulations on a selective basis, arbitrarily enforcing them at times and against specific targets.

The government needs to make a more liberal and fair business environment for multinational companies to invest. It should deregulate many inefficient obstacles and operate long-term economic policies with consistency. It should also deal sternly with corruption.

The efficiency of Korean ports and airport facilities also lags behind that of other comparable Asian cities like Shanghai or Hong Kong. The investors are worried that despite the high quality of Korea’s port infrastructure, the competitiveness of these ports is being challenged by stiff regulations and unsatisfactory cargo handling and transportation procedures. At Incheon airport, the advantage of excellent cargo handling skills is offset by sudden and steep price increases that eliminate its competitive edge.

Particular attention should be paid to improve the predictability of new regulations and limit price changes as much as possible so that companies can react accordingly and are given enough time to incorporate those changes into their business plans.

Most investors feel that despite its importance as an import and export country, Korea’s logistics sector still lags behind international standards. Logistics costs in Korea are among the highest in the world, and investors deem it important to improve this situation for the development of foreign business in this country.

Improvements in local infrastructure and regulations are necessary to position Korea as a strategic logistics hub.

Intellectual property rights issues also continue to be a major barrier to attracting foreign direct investment in Korea. The issue is a very serious one and Korea’s bad image in this respect repels foreign investors willing to bring advanced technologies and processes to this market for fear of losing billions of dollars to piracy, counterfeiting and fraud.

The Korean government has devoted much effort in recent years to improving the situation, especially by improving the related legal framework in the FTAs it has signed. In addition, the Korean government has improved its enforcement organization, but production, marketing, importing and exporting of counterfeit and pirate goods are still not deterred effectively in the ordinary marketplace because enforcement actions by the Korean authorities lack continuous efforts.

Korea can easily secure a competitive edge just by seriously enforcing its existing IPR regulations. The strict observance of those IPR regulations, if achieved, will have a very positive impact on the country’s overall image with foreign investors.

Aside from that, the cost of production is much higher. The recent increase of domestic labor costs will cause serious problems for competitiveness in productivity. Eventually, manufacturing facilities will move overseas.

What is more, many existing foreign investors feel that Korea is not successful in promoting its image abroad for foreign investors, mainly due to the lack of coordinated government efforts for the promotion of FDI and the less-than-satisfactory performance of Korean investment promotion organizations abroad.

The latest move by the Park administration, while a step in the right direction, also needs to take into account all these factors that hinder foreign investors.

Korean workers’ tax burden not as bad as it seems

2015-04-19T21:31:00.001+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

Going by the recent debates on tax hikes in Korea and President Park Geun-hye’s firm resolve not to place “an additional burden on the public,” it would appear that the Koreans are being taxed heavily.

Although it is true that economic growth is stagnant, and employment rates are not too rosy, a new report by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development has just shattered the myth that the tax burden in Korea is unusually high.

The OECD report, Taxing Wages 2015, released on April 14, says the tax burden has increased in 23 member countries and fallen in 10 over the past five years. And guess which group Korea falls into?

That’s right, from 2010 to 2014, the tax burden in Korea has declined, even as the middle class in most other developed countries are feeling the heat.

The annual report provides unique information on the taxes paid on wages in OECD countries. It covers personal income taxes and social security contributions paid by employees; social security contributions and payroll taxes paid by employers and cash benefits paid by in-work families.

The results enable quantitative cross-country comparisons of labor cost levels and the overall tax and benefit position of single people and families on different levels of income.

The tax and social security contribution burden is measured by the “tax wedge” ― or the percentage of employers’ labor costs taken up by taxes, minus family benefits.

Because labor is an important economic input, higher employment rates will lead to higher GDP, other things being equal.

Yet employment has declined markedly in Korea over the past few years. These poor employment outcomes are often blamed on high taxes on labor, since taxes discourage both demand and supply, by raising labor costs for employers and lowering workers’ effective wages.

This creates a “tax wedge” between labor costs to the employer and the worker’s take-home pay.

The tax wedge, measured as a percentage of taxes and transfers paid in the share of total labor costs, is therefore a measure of the overall level of workers’ taxation.

Now let us see what the analysis of Korea states.

According to the report, Korea has the fifth-lowest tax wedge among the 34 OECD member countries. The average single worker in Korea faced a tax wedge of 21.5 percent in 2014, compared with the OECD average of 36 percent.

In Korea, employee and employer social security contributions combine to account for 79 percent of the total tax wedge, compared with 63 percent of the total OECD average tax wedge.

The tax wedge for a worker with children may be lower than for a worker on the same income without children, since many OECD countries provide benefits to families with children through cash transfers and preferential tax provisions. Korea has the eighth-lowest tax wedge in the OECD for an average married worker with two children, at 19 percent, which compares with the OECD average of 26.9 percent.

Child-related benefits and tax provisions tend to reduce the tax wedge for workers with children compared with the average single worker. In Korea in 2014, this reduction ― 2.5 percentage points ― was less than for the OECD average of 9.1 percentage points.

Looking at the trend over a long period, the OECD report states that since 2009, the tax wedge for the average single worker increased by 2 percentage points in Korea. During this same period, the tax wedge for the average single worker across the OECD increased by 0.9 percentage points. In other words, while it is true that single workers without children in Korea have felt the pain of taxes most, it is not as bad as it is made out to be.

The employee net tax burden is a measure of the net tax burden on labor income borne directly by the employee. Korea had the third-lowest employee net tax burden for an average single worker at 13.4 percent in 2014, compared with the OECD average of 25.5 percent. That is, in Korea the take-home pay of an average single worker, after tax and benefits, was 86.6 percent of their gross wage.

Taking into account child-related benefits and tax provisions, the employee net tax burden for an average married worker with two children in Korea was reduced to 10.7 percent in 2014, compared with 14.8 percent for the OECD average. Which means that an average married worker with two children in Korea had a take-home pay, after tax and family benefits, of 89.3 percent of their gross wage, compared to 85.2 percent for the OECD average.

The key takeaways from this analysis is that the tax system in Korea is becoming more progressive for low-income households, especially households with children. This is obvious from the fact that the tax wedge for families with children is lower than that for single individuals without children.

Also, an increase in the tax wedge leads to an increase in companies’ labor costs. However, in Korea, there has been a decline. So clearly the corporate sector, which has been tight-fisted in raising salaries or hiring needs a rethink. It is therefore a good thing that the government is imposing additional taxes on companies who do not make use of their cash reserves.

Lastly, there is no reason why the government should be so adamant about not raising taxes. Policymakers should look beyond short-term election outcomes and concentrate on the longer-term impact of raising taxes for certain people.

Labor reforms face hurdles in Korea

2015-04-11T15:04:00.001+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The presidential office last week urged representatives of labor, management and the government to compromise on contentious reform measures aimed at providing greater flexibility in the labor market, a day after they failed to narrow their differences within the deadline.

The Economic and Social Development Commission ― a consultative body comprising representatives of labor, management and the government ― had set March 31 as the deadline for concluding months of talks on overhauling Korea’s labor market.

The discussions focused on the issue of the labor market’s dual structure ― the huge gap between full-time regular employees and nonregular workers ― pending topics like wages, working hours and retirement, the issue of partnership among tripartite partners, and other policy and institutional improvements.

In particular, in light of the importance and urgency of the pending issues such as the reduction of working hours and ordinary wages ― whether to include regularly-paid bonuses in ordinary wage calculations ― they agreed to come up with “principles and direction for a solution of the pending issues and labor market structure improvement.” Details are expected to be arranged in the first half of the year.

The trilateral meetings reportedly reached some agreement, especially on ordinary wages, plans to reduce working hours and an extension of the retirement age. However, labor unions strongly resisted a government proposal to grant employers more discretion in firing underperforming regular workers. News reports also suggested that management opposed the labor groups’ suggestion to force them to give nonregular workers regular status if their work is similar to that of regular workers.

The presidential office took the unusual step of reminding the panel to find common ground, stressing “it is necessary for the nation’s economic growth and future generations.”

The overhaul of the labor market is one of the reform measures President Park Gyeun-hye is pushing as part of her three-year economic revitalization plan. She has argued that labor reform is key to job creation.

To increase labor market flexibility, the government and management have urged labor groups to accept the idea of lifting some labor regulations for employers so they can replace underperforming workers. But labor groups oppose the idea, saying it would eventually allow businesses to seek massive lay-offs and pressure poorly performing workers to accept salary reductions.

The idea is intended to force regular workers out and replace them with nonregular workers, which would lower the overall quality of jobs, they claim.

Given the continued mistrust between the concerned parties, it is unlikely that they will reach an agreement anytime soon. Unions have even threatened a general strike if the government and management push for reforms without consent from workers.

Therefore it may be prudent to take a look at Korea’s labor market from a historical perspective, before we analyze what, exactly, are some of the current problems.

Seeing eye-to-eye

Since the 1960s, Korea has achieved remarkable economic growth, mainly due to cheap labor and diligent and skilled workers. Labor policies during this period were intended to guarantee the basic livelihood of workers and provide sufficient workers for industrial development. But it was not until the mid-1970s that the government recognized the importance of labor issues.

Until then, industrial relations were not viewed as a major social and economic issue, but in the following years, when the country’s labor market saturated, the problem of working conditions replaced that of job creation as the central social and economic focus. Many fierce labor disputes erupted, which resulted in severe government crackdowns.

In the early 1980s, workers’ awareness of their rights became widespread, especially with regard to claiming their fair share of the fruits of the economic growth achieved in the past two decades. However, the government cracked down on the labor movement. As a result, in spite of the marked increase in the number of workers from 1980 to 1987 and the growing awareness of their rights, the number of unionized workers remained at around 1 million.

With rapid democratization in 1987, Korea underwent significant changes in its labor movement. A number of new labor unions were formed, and many businesses saw a dramatic increase in disputes.

The shortage of manual workers in the construction and manufacturing sectors became acute as workers became less willing to take on difficult, dirty and dangerous jobs.

Labor was no longer cheap, as wages rapidly increased. These changes forced the nation to transform from a labor-intensive economy a more technology-based one.

The labor policy underwent dramatic changes through the reduction of government intervention based on the principle of labor-management autonomy and the revision of labor-related laws to meet international standards.

The government also made efforts to actively promote the interests of workers with the institutionalization of the minimum wage system, the reduction of working hours and the abolition of legal restrictions on strikes.

Trade unions called for the introduction of new labor laws in the early 1990s to ensure that job seekers received appropriate vocational training to meet the demand for new skills generated by structural changes in companies. When the nation was hit by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the urgent need to reform both the social and economic sectors was recognized.

While making continuous efforts to reach a consensus on major labor issues, the government revised labor laws to meet international standards in 1997 with the founding of the Labor-Management Relations Reform Committee, thereby achieving remarkable improvements in the area of basic labor rights. However, it had its own side effects.

The Tripartite Commission was formed as the need to draw a national consensus for the sake of overcoming the economic crisis became clear after Korea had to introduce reforms after being bailed out by the International Monetary Fund. A historic consensus was reached among labor, management and the government over structural reforms and burden-sharing in February 1998. On the basis of this consensus, many businesses could implement corporate restructuring measures, including employment adjustments and pay freezes.

Since 2000, there have been both legislative reforms such as shortening working hours, enacting the Law on Nonregular Works, and structural reforms such as the spread of industry-level unions and the expansion of labor’s political activities.

Thanks to such efforts, the economy rebounded quickly. Industrial relations, however, worsened as expectations ran high and more structural reforms got underway. The number of factors that contributed to labor-management conflicts, such as lay-offs, a decrease in new hiring, a larger number of nonregular workers, a widening gap between labor and management positions on wage hikes, compensation and provisional seizure claims against strikers etc., has been on the rise, in line with worsening economic conditions.

Experts have pointed out that despite this, when comparing Korea’s labor standards and regulations to those of advanced economies, it is important to keep in mind that the core labor standards have developed through an evolutionary process over more than a century, and it has been less than 30 years since the democratic movement in 1987 began to free Korea from its long past of oppression and autocratic control. It can be safely said that Korea’s labor movement is still in a transitional period, in which the labor structure is slowly converging with global labor culture and practices.

Trade unions

Trade unions in Korea are broadly divided into three organizational types: enterprise-level trade unions, federations of trade unions and nationwide federations of trade unions. There are 42 federations of enterprise-level unions and two nationwide federations.

The Federation of Korean Trade Unions was formed in 1961 after a military coup, and the dissolution of the General Federation of Korean Trade Unions and its affiliates. It was placed under the guidance of the military authorities and was the sole legal trade union center in Korea until the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions was recognized in November 1999. Of the two, the KCTU is generally considered to be more militant.

As of the end of 2013 ― the latest available government estimates ― the number of unionized workers in Korea was 1.848 million, up 66,000 from the previous year. The unionization rate was 10.3 percent, meaning that 1 in 10 Korean workers is a member of a trade union.

According to a report on trade unions published by the Ministry of Employment and Labor, Korea’s unionization rate fell from 19.8 percent in 1989, and declined to single digits (9.8 percent) for the first time in 2010. In 2011, the figure bounced back to 10.1 percent, due to the law allowing multiple unions to operate within one company, and has stayed around 10.3 percent for the past few years.

Segmenting the number of unionized workers by umbrella organizations shows that the FKTU had the largest membership of 819,755 members (44.4 percent); the KCTU had 626,035 members (20.7 percent); the Korean Labor Unions Confederation had 22,221 members (1.1 percent); and the remaining 381,575 workers (20.7 percent) belonged to independent trade unions.

The number of members climbed by 11,000 (1.4 percent) for the FKTU; by 21,000 (3.5 percent) for the KCTU; by 2,000 (12.9 percent) for the KLUC; and by 32,000 (9 percent) for independent unions.

At end-December 2014, it was announced that the FKTU and the KLUC would merge. They claimed that the decision to reconstitute as a single organization was “to eliminate unnecessary conflict between labor organizations, make themselves more reliable for the public, and play a bigger role in social issues based on a higher unionization rate.”

As a result of the merger, the FKTU will take on 15,000 government workers belonging to the KLUC to reach 960,000 members.

The number of independent unions, meanwhile, went up eightfold, compared with 2003, perhaps due to a new tendency emerging among workers to pursue practical interests, instead of politically-charged labor movements, the report noted.

According to sectorial classification, private sector labor unionization is 9.1 percent, the government employee unionization rate is 63.5 percent, and the educational worker unionization rate is 16.8 percent.

It is important to mention that the ESDC has been seriously disrupted by the KCTU’s struggles against the government and the withdrawal of the FKTU. However, in mid-August 2014, the FKTU returned to the ESDC and the urgent labor issues of ordinary wages, working hour reductions and the retirement age are currently under discussion.

Labor relations

As per the latest available figures, in 2014 there were over 100 labor disputes and 551,305 lost working days. Given the stalemate in the ESDC talks, one can only expect the conflict between labor and management to degenerate this year.

For that matter, according to a recent survey of 306 companies by the Korea Employer’s Federation, 63.1 percent of respondents said “industrial relations will worsen in 2015 than last year.” Being more specific, 11.4 percent of companies responded that “industrial relations will worsen much,” “industrial relations will worsen a little” (51.7 percent), “similar to last year” (33.5 percent), and “more stable” (3.4 percent).

The most common answer from companies was “industrial relations will worsen” due to conflicts surrounding industrial relations regarding ordinary wages, the reduction of working hours, and in-house subcontracts and partner firms (outsourcing).

The major risk factor in industrial relations in 2015 are legal conflicts surrounding pending industrial relations issues, conflicts over the improvement of the wage system, and the improvement of labor related law and systems.

The companies which projected unstable industrial relations in 2015 pointed out legal conflicts surrounding pending industrial relations issues, conflicts over the improvement of the wage system, and the improvement of labor-related law, and systems. In particular, companies viewed the expansion of legal conflicts surrounding pending industrial relations issues as the biggest risk factor since the burden on companies increased due to lawsuits regarding ordinary wages on industrial sites, ruling on additional payments for holiday work, and ruling on the violation of illegal dispatches.

Companies projected that the major issues in the 2015 wage negotiation and collective bargaining would be wage increases, extended scope of ordinary wages, welfare expansion and employment security like prohibiting reconstruction. In particular, it is presumed that many companies would carry out only wage negotiations and trade unions would focus on demanding wage hikes and welfare expansion that are the major interests of union members.

Moreover, the government announced its Comprehensive Measures for Nonregular Workers in 2014, stating its intention to work on structural reform of the labor market ― enhancing flexibility within the labor market and reforming wage systems.

Furthermore, discussions on changes to labor law and regulations will not be easy since labor is strongly opposed to the government’s policies in this area. Conflict between the government and labor may well intensify as the government plans structural adjustments to public institutions and public pensions. Under these circumstances, collective bargaining this year is likely to be difficult.

Issues on hand

On Dec. 29, the government submitted comprehensive plans for nonregular workers to the ESDC aimed at eliminating the abuse of and discrimination against nonregular workers, and narrowing the gap in terms of working conditions between regular and nonregular workers.

To achieve these goals, the plans focus on reducing the differences between workers of different status, enhancing job security, and improving regulations for the labor market.

As of end-2014, the number of nonregular workers was about 32.4 percent of the total paid workforce, a 53.5 percent of female workers. The percentage of nonregular workers among workers aged 60 or older was 68.7 percent.

The government has proposed a measure to amend the fixed-term work act and the temporary agency work act so that employees of either status aged 35 years or older can, if they want, work for the same company for up to four years, as opposed to the current two. Also, it would become much easier for workers to be eligible for severance pay. It wants to make employees eligible to receive severance pay if they work for a company for three months or longer, as opposed to the current one year or longer, so 1.95 million workers are expected to benefit from this relaxation in requirements.

In addition, the government recommended that employees should be able to receive a transition benefit worth 10 percent of their wage for the two-year period of extended service, along with severance pay if they fail to become regular workers after the extension.

So far, temporary agency work has been permitted in 32 business categories, and such work is now allowed for those aged 55 years or older, and for highly paid professionals as well.

The Labor Ministry said it would take measures to rationalize the regulations on temporary agency work following discussions with the ESDC. The ministry will also allow six special types of worker to be covered by work injury and employment insurance.

The requirements for layoffs will become more specific, making it easier for businesses to dismiss underperforming regular workers, and the layoff process will become more demanding, requiring companies to hire people for positions that were lost due to financial difficulties.

The government will formulate “Layoff Guidelines,” which will specify what efforts companies should make before dismissing underperformers, such as assigning them to different positions.

Currently, nonregular workers have to appeal to the Labor Relations Commission as individuals if they believe they have been discriminated against in terms of wages or welfare benefits, but they will be able to use a trade union to appeal on their behalf. Businesses will be prohibited from the practice of paying only 90 percent of the full salary for menial workers, such as convenience store clerks or gas station workers, for a training period, which is usually three months.

Also, for those whose performance is closely linked to human safety, such as captains or chief engineers on cruisers, train engineers, airport controllers and airplane pilots, nonregular work will not be allowed as a matter of principle.

However, both business and labor communities have expressed their concerns about the “side effects” of the government plans.

The corporate sector has argued that “The government plans will expand the scope of nonregular workers too much, and have focused on strengthening regulations relating to the use of nonregular workers, ignoring the real situations of employers and of the labor market. The plans will put significant burdens on business operations.”

In an official statement, the KEF noted that the reforms “disregarded the circumstances of corporates that are the main agents for job creation and the reality of the labor market. It is deeply concerning that these opinions are written in a way that it mainly represents the labor stance on important issues that possibly influence decisions on directions for the Korean labor market.”

The barriers to labor market entry should be lowered in order to create jobs and improve the dual structure of the labor market, it said. However, the current policy will “strengthen the vested rights of workers who are already in the labor market.”

Major causes for polarization of the labor market are the overprotection of regular employment and the excessive hike of wages based on a seniority-based wage system. Therefore, it is almost impossible to expect an improvement of vulnerable workers’ labor conditions unless these issues are solved in the first place.

However, these new regulations may shift the burden to companies by disregarding the improvement of reasonable human resource management such as resolving the current overprotection of regular employment and alleviating requirements for changing working conditions.

Also, it is not appropriate to intensify the burden through introducing such systems as living wages and market wage prices at a time when minimum wage stability is urgent, since minimum wages surged rapidly after 2000.

Trade unions point out that “The government is seeking to massively increase the number of nonregular workers by extending how long companies can hire a nonregular worker for a position, by introducing a new status of ‘semiregular worker,’ which falls between regular and nonregular workers, and by allowing temporary agency workers aged 55 years or older in more business categories.”

Kim Dong-man, president of the FKTU, which is negotiating in the trilateral commission, stressed, “The government is pushing ahead with full-scale strategies for labor flexibility without making an effort to reach an agreement among social partners. We have no option but to stop social dialogue if the government continues to do so. The unilateral plan will be faced with strong protest by the FKTU and we are ready to stage a general strike.”

He went on to say, “We are demanding the government drastically change the economic structure and policy directions for the achievement of income-led growth. To this end, we will step up our efforts for the alleviation of discrimination against precarious workers, the eradication of unfair subcontracting practices and the achievement of fair taxation.”

It now remains to be seen whether the government can get labor groups and management on the same page in the near future, so the Park administration can focus on economic revitalization. The next few weeks are surely going to be very dramatic.

E-commerce opportunities surging in Korea

2015-04-07T21:09:00.002+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

E-commerce is rapidly transforming the way in which enterprises are interacting with each other, as well as with consumers, and growing rapidly across the globe. Korea is no exception and it has clocked rapid growth in recent years.

According to Statistics Korea, in the business-to-consumer, or B2C segment, the online shopping transaction value reached 45.24 trillion won ($41.02 billion) in 2014, which increased 17.5 percent from 38.50 trillion won in 2013. The mobile shopping transaction value recorded 14.81 trillion won in 2014, which increased 125.8 percent from 2013.

Furthermore, in a recent report that has been overlooked by local media, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has many positive things to say about Korea’s e-commerce industry.

The 125-page Information Economy Report 2015, released on March 24, examines the potential opportunities and risks of e-commerce and examines how countries can benefit the most from the phenomenon in today’s information society.

More importantly, it has also compiled the first B2C E-commerce Index, which will be updated annually, and can serve as a useful tool for countries wishing to assess their readiness to engage successfully in online commerce.

This index is significant because until now, there were few benchmarks of country e-commerce performance. Those that exist suffer from a lack of public availability, scope or consistent methodology, as well as limited geographical coverage.

The UNCTAD Index ― which compares affordable Internet access, mechanisms for paying for goods and services ordered online, and effective solutions for their delivery ― allows countries not only to compare their performance against others, but also indicates where they are relatively strong and where there may be a need for improvement.

In what should please our policymakers, Korea is placed positively in the index with a rank of 8 among 130 countries with a score of 84.3. The countries ahead of Korea include Luxembourg (91.7), Norway (88.3), Finland (88.1), Canada (87.1), Sweden (86), Australia (85.5) and Denmark (84.7).

Noticeably, Korea is way ahead of its Asian counterparts, with Hong Kong ranking 18 and Singapore 26.

The report also looks at rural e-commerce by showcasing the case of Korea. As it notes, the experience in Korea is positive, with rural e-commerce sales continually rising. Success factors include close collaboration between the government, operators and rural citizens to market and sell goods and services.

While the report may appear favorable to Korea, one should bear in mind there is one crucial aspect that has not been included in the Index ― legal and regulatory framework ― which influences the degree of trust in online transactions.

This issue is all the more important, given that the e-commerce market in Korea is booming.

Having said that, one must compliment the Korean government for this performance. With typical Korean farsightedness, e-commerce has figured in the government’s thinking since the late ’90s.

In 1999 the Korean government ― among the first to do so worldwide ― established the “Basic Act on Electronic Commerce,” which was followed by the “Comprehensive Policies for e-Commerce” in 2000 and “e-Business Initiative in Korea” in 2001.

The government’s stated aim was to play an active role in the globalization of e-business and fully promote it as a means to realize structural innovation of its industry and strengthen the competitiveness of Korean companies.

However in the process, attention was being paid to only one segment of e-commerce ― B2C transactions.

When we talk about e-commerce the first thing that pops into our mind is B2C. It involves sales by e-commerce enterprises to consumers and online sales channels of bricks-and-mortar retail outlets or manufacturing firms.

What is not given as much attention is the business-to-business, or B2B commerce. This actually accounts for the bulk of e-commerce worldwide.

It involves transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer.

Then there is consumer-to-consumer commerce, or C2C, which covers online action platforms and sales within online communities. This is followed by business-to-government commerce, or B2G, where the buyer is the government entity, such as in the case of public e-procurement.

While B2C has shown remarkable growth, development of the B2B and B2G sectors have not kept pace.

Unfortunately, Statistics Korea stopped collating statistics on B2B and B2G transactions from the first quarter of 2014, so there are no numbers to compare and evaluate. It had argued that “based on the opinions from policymaking agencies, research institutes and universities, we concluded that e-commerce statistics were not any longer useful.”

In recent months there has been steady news of the conglomerates jumping on the B2B bandwagon and investing more resources, seeing the huge potential. This is surely driving the e-commerce market in Korea.

However, for small and medium enterprises, it is a totally different ballgame. Many studies suggest that B2B offers greater potential benefits for smaller business than other forms of e-commerce. Although they need to engage in B2B e-commerce to participate in national or global value chains, they have not been able to take full advantage.

The e-commerce utilization in SMEs is currently found to be quite insufficient. While there are no regulatory hurdles, clearly the initial cost of setting up a B2B system is too high for them.

The government, for its part, is doing its bit by promoting various projects, such as creating infrastructure by establishing and standardizing B2B networks in industries, developing technology, and fostering manpower.

For years e-commerce has been directed at B2C businesses. Now, however, after substantial shifts in buyer behavior, the industry is changing. E-commerce is becoming a leveled playing field between B2C and B2B.

This is presenting some immense opportunities for B2B businesses and making way for a new age of hybrid companies, and the government should proactively help Korean SMEs jump on the bandwagon, instead of sitting by and watching conglomerates take away the entire market.

It should launch projects on international cooperation for the global B2B market so that SMEs can expand their business. Policies should also constantly be identified to keep up with new changes in the market.

Additionally, Statistics Korea should resume publishing regular data on B2B and B2G transactions. It will help the government in tracking developments and tweaking policy when needed.

Deregulate lotteries to fund welfare

2015-03-29T21:09:00.004+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

There has been a heated debate in recent months about the need to raise taxes in Korea to generate revenue for the various government welfare programs to support the needy. While President Park Geun-hye has ruled out the possibility of raising taxes and is instead eyeing the “shadow economy” to get the much-needed funds, there is one other source that has been completely overlooked ― lotteries.

Lotteries are of particular interest to public finance economists since they represent an important source of government revenue in many countries. As a significant contributor to the government kitty, they have been widely examined by economists focusing primarily on their revenue potential and desirability as a method of taxation ― in many countries they exceed in magnitude tax collections on goods such as alcohol or tobacco.

Moreover, lotteries run for or by governments are used to support public programs such as infrastructure development, public safety, public health and education. The principal argument used to support lotteries has focused on their value as a source of “harmless” revenue, contributed by players voluntarily spending their money.

Critics have, of course, argued that lotteries for the most part have a regressive impact ― in the sense that the burden falls disproportionately on people with lower incomes, who typically spend a greater portion of their income on lotteries than those with higher incomes.

That said, while the lottery market in Korea has been growing, the pace of growth has been very negligible. Moreover, the lottery options available to customers are also limited.

Korea’s lottery business model currently has a three-tier structure: the Korea Lottery Commission, primary lottery operators and secondary lottery operators.

The KLC, a government agency responsible for formulating and implementing lottery-related policies, has exclusive authority to issue, sell and manage lottery products, but it entrusts private lottery companies with the operations.

The available lottery schemes are: online lottery game Lotto 6/45, four printed lottery games ― one draw game, three instant games ― and seven Internet lottery games ― four draw games, three instant games. Then there is a sports lottery.

Unlike in other countries, the National Gambling Control Commission, a regulator under the Prime Minister’s Office, sets a limit on sales each year for the industry as part of its efforts “to control, supervise and regulate the gambling industry independently, with prevention policies as the first priority.”

The Finance Ministry asks the NGCC every year to eliminate the sales ceiling, arguing that the lottery is less addictive than other gambling industries and its share of GDP is half of the OECD average and one-third of the rate in other Asian countries. The NGCC has consistently refused the request, afraid of annoying the antigambling lobby.

Since lottery tickets went on sale for the first time in 1947, printed lottery tickets have been dominant in Korea. But from 2003, the Korean lottery market has become disproportionately lopsided toward the online lottery.

Industry experts have noted that Koreans want to try out new lottery products, but the limited options and lack of enthusiasm for other products that offer lesser payouts made them switch back to Lotto.

Lotto continues to offer the highest prize money among all available lotteries, but it is just a fraction of that in other developed markets. While jackpots often run into hundreds of millions of dollars in Europe and the U.S., the average single jackpot prize in Korea works out to around $2 million.

The growth of this industry is artificially restricted as the government has been under constant pressure to “stabilize the market and curb reckless gambling.” On the contrary, by artificially constraining the legal lottery market, the government helps sustain the growth of illegal gambling.

The latest statistics of the Finance Ministry show that Korea’s lottery industry grew for the ninth year in a row in 2014, with total sales surpassing 19.87 trillion won.

According to official data, gambling-related sales ― casinos, lotteries, horse, cycling and boat races and traditional bullfights ― grew 1 percent, by 199.2 billion won from the year before. For 2015, government officials expect the size of the industry will top 20 trillion won, mainly from a rise in demand for lotteries and casinos.

Of this, sales of various lottery tickets and sports betting exceeded 3.28 trillion won each, up 1.4 percent and 6.5 percent, from the year before.

The NGCC’s claim that the domestic lottery market is overheating is far from true. It has only been showing modest growth.

If we contrast the performance of Korean lottery sales with average performances in the Asia-Pacific, the real picture emerges. Estimates by the World Lottery Association show that Asia-Pacific lotteries have been witnessing average growth of over 10 percent.

The fastest-growing market is China. According to government figures, China’s lottery market continued to grow in 2014, with total lottery sales of $61.2 billion, representing a growth of 23.6 percent.

Even in European countries smaller than Korea, with historically similar income levels, the lottery market is almost four times larger.

Clearly, the market growth in South Korea is insignificant given its potential.

It may be true that in the past the industry’s growth potential was limited because of the social stigma attached to lotteries in a Confucian society, but that restraint has slowly faded over the years.

If the lottery market is to expand, the legal and regulatory framework needs drastic changes. The operators should be allowed a wide portfolio of games, which they should be able to offer across all channels ― retail, Internet and mobile.

More importantly, if the government is serious about mopping up revenues without higher taxes, it should consider the lottery option for funding welfare schemes.

Currently, 35 percent of lottery proceeds are appropriated to 10 legally mandated projects in accordance with Article 56 of the Lottery and Lottery Fund Act; the remaining money is used to help low-income families with housing, veterans’ welfare, cultural heritage and art promotion, and other public works.

Instead of imposing penalties and curbing the growth of the market, the NGCC should do away with any limits and let the markets decide. It will go a long way in boosting the lottery market and help the government efforts to boost welfare without tax hikes.

Dynamics of Korea-China economic relations

2015-03-12T20:31:00.003+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The much-awaited Korea-China Free Trade Agreement was initialed in late February, taking a step closer to implementing what is seen as Korea’s most significant trade deal.

The initialing came about three months after the two countries concluded FTA negotiations that began in May 2012, and is expected to eclipse its deals with the U.S. and the EU, as China is already its largest trading partner.

China, the world’s largest destination for Korean goods, accounted for more than one-quarter ― $145.28 billion ― of Korea’s overall exports of $572.66 billion in 2014. The next biggest national-level markets for Korean exporters are the United States at 11 percent and Japan at 6 percent.

According to news reports, the agreement, currently written in English, will be translated into the two countries’ native languages before it is officially signed.

“The two governments have agreed to work toward the official signing of the FTA within the first half of 2015,” the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release.

The pact requires approval from both the respective legislatures for implementation, and will come into force immediately after it is passed.

Under the deal, Korea will completely eliminate its tariffs on 79 percent of all products, or 9,690 items, imported from China within 10 years of its implementation. China will reciprocate the move on 71 percent of the products, or 5,846 items, from Korea during the same period.

Within 20 years, Korea will eliminate its tariffs on 92 percent of all goods, with China eliminating its own import duties on 91 percent of products from Korea.

“The government will do its utmost to have the agreement ratified by the National Assembly without any disruption so that our companies can start benefiting from the Korea-China FTA at an early date,” the Trade Ministry said.

Soon after initialing the deal, Deputy Trade Minister Woo Tae-hee pointed out that some new and positive elements had been added to the agreement since the conclusion of negotiations on Nov. 10.

According to the government, 310 products from the inter-Korean joint industrial complex in Gaeseong will immediately benefit from a reduction or elimination of Chinese import tariffs.

The two countries have also added a new standstill clause in their bilateral agreement that will prevent either side from raising or adopting new customs duties on any products or services.

Through additional dialogue, Korea has gained better market access and established a better business environment in China for financial and communications service providers, the Trade Ministry said.

The two countries have also agreed to provide preferential treatment to each other’s financial firms and to set up a new committee to jointly deal with any business problems for the firms. They also guarantee nondiscriminatory access to communications networks by companies entering each other’s markets.

In addition, the Korean government moved to quieten fears of damage to its farmers, as 596 out of 2,240 agricultural and fisheries products currently imported from China will be permanently excluded from market liberalization, while 16 others, including rice, were excluded from negotiations from the beginning.

Following its implementation, the FTA is expected to help boost the countries’ annual bilateral trade to over $300 billion, a 21.54 percent hike from $235.36 billion in 2014.

Also, according to the government, Korea’s trade territory, represented by the combined gross domestic product of countries with which it has a free trade pact, will grow to 73 percent of global GDP from the current 61 percent.

There is no doubt that this a very significant deal and could have a very great impact on the economies of both countries.

However, as many analysts have pointed out, China’s rise puts Korea in a strategic dilemma between the U.S. and China. Traditionally, Korea and the U.S. have been close allies. Their alliance has been a major factor in Korea’s political and economic success. Due to China’s consistent rise, market growth and size, it so happens that Korea is now increasingly dependent on its neighbor’s economy. Consequently, it has to dually manage its security, which is grounded in the alliance with the U.S., and its economic well-being, which depends on its economic partnership with China.

It is therefore important to check how the economic relations panned out prior to the implementation of the FTA.

Economic relations

China established trade relations with Korea as early as the mid-1970s. However, due to the lack of formal diplomatic relations, most of the trade was conducted indirectly via Hong Kong, thus limiting trade volume.

Experts have suggested that their economic cooperation developed through three stages. In the early 1990s, many Korean politicians were eager to construct a dialogue with key political leaders of China. Business executives of Korean conglomerates then joined the politicians in opening channels for dialogue with China. Finally, in August 1992, a diplomatic relationship was established between both sides which opened a new chapter for bilateral economic relations.

The first stage started with diplomatic normalization and the beginning of the first China boom ― both trade and investment increased sharply from almost nothing. This trend continued until the second half of 1997, when the country was hit by the Asian financial crisis. Following this, the second stage brought about a slowdown bilateral economic relations, including the pulling out or canceling of many investment projects in China because of difficulties with Korean companies’ cash flow.

This did not last too long, however, since China became a member of the World Trade Organization in late 2001, which once again saw foreign companies flocking to the country, and Korea was no exception. Since then, China once again has been the biggest economic partner of Korea, including the development of a new destination of informal migration. As a consequence, it did not take long for the relationship to solidify, and in 2004, China became the exporting and investing country of first importance to Korea.

In the meantime, the trade structure has also changed considerably. In the early 1990s, trade from China to Korea was often in primary goods, as well as labor-intensive products, while China imported technology-intensive and capital-intensive manufactured products from Korea. In recent years, trade between the two countries is mostly in technology- and capital-intensive goods. Foreign-invested enterprises, especially those with investment from Korea, played a critical role in the structural changes of the bilateral trade.

As noted by Cheong Young-rok, professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at Seoul National University, “There are two different schools of thought in Korean academia: One school argues that China is a mere clone or extension of other Asian countries that were once glorified as newly industrializing economies or high-performing Asian economies. In this context, China could be a really tough competitor for Korean companies, especially for Korea’s exporting industries, and could undermine the export basis of Korean growth.

“The other school of thought tries to prove that China’s growth is intrinsic in the sense that it has resulted from a combination of improved resource allocation and a new model for a sizable economy that has been carried out by China’s own design. As a result, Koreans hope that China will become an additional country for quick economic interaction.”

The flip side of this increasingly tight economic relationship is, first, that Korea is now more dependent on the fate of the Chinese economy, and second that the risk of friction is higher than in the past.

Any fluctuation in the fortunes of the Chinese economy has an immediate impact on the Korean economy. If there is a slowdown in China, Korea’s trade is hurt badly, which has a ripple effect on other sectors.

Trade figures

If we look at the bilateral trade figures between both the countries in 2014, a number of important facts emerge.

According to latest available trade figures, Korea’s total exports to China in 2014 slipped by 0.4 percent on-year. The slowdown started in May 2014 when there was zero growth, and since then the monthly exports have registered consecutive negative growth. This was the first decline in five years.

This is significant, given that Korea relies heavily on its neighbor.

If we look at the export components, the picture becomes clearer. Korea’s exports to China are mostly comprised of intermediate and capital goods.

At the disaggregate level, in 2013, Korean exports to China were dominated by machinery and transport equipment (48 percent), followed by manufactured goods (24 percent), chemicals and related products (19.5 percent), and minerals, fuels and lubricants (6 percent). Crude materials, food and live animals, beverages and tobacco, commodities transactions, and animal and vegetable oils make up for the remainder of exports.

Now, if we look at the growth rate of these categories, something interesting emerges.

Export of machinery and transport equipment grew 4.6 percent on-year (from $70.49 billion to $73.72 billion) in 2014. This does seem positive, but if we look closer, the pace of growth has actually fallen drastically. In 2013, growth was at 21.8 percent. Since this group accounts for almost half of total exports, it is worrisome.

Next, the export of manufactured goods to China shows a negative growth of 5.4 percent, down to $22.82 billion. Chemicals and related products were down 4.2 percent at $27.14 billion; minerals, fuels and lubricants down by 12.5 percent; crude materials, food and live animals, commodities transactions, animal and vegetable oils all declined, by 6.6 percent, 1.6 percent, 39.6 percent and 43.3 percent, respectively.

Some explanations can be provided for this decline in South Korean exports to China.

Many news reports and studies have noted that Chinese manufacturers are now increasingly producing the parts and equipment that once were imported from Korea. However, many Korean companies still continue to regard China as a production base for exports to other countries. This is a fallacy because Chinese companies have fast developed their consumer goods market and are increasingly becoming self-sufficient in intermediary goods.

If, as has been the norm, Korea continues to export to China mostly products that are actually being exported to a third country, they will be in trouble if China’s exports falter.

Also hurting Korean exports is China’s growing self-sufficiency, with greater investment and technological abilities in industries where Korean companies have historically supplied exports.

As noted in many news reports, officials at the Trade Ministry agree and attribute this decline to the fact that China is improving its own supply capacity and therefore has reduced dependence on Korean intermediary goods. Chinese firms have started producing more of the intermediary goods on their own.

Local Chinese companies appear to be giving tough competition to Korean firms.

This is a view also taken by the state-funded think tank Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, which noted recently that China has been ramping up its own production capacity for intermediary goods and has less demand of its own for finished products because of moderating economic growth.

Hopefully, the FTA will set things right for Korea on the trade front. For this, the government needs to undertake a more detailed analysis to understand the cause for this decline and how Korean companies can overcome the situation.

Investment situation

Another important form of interaction between the two economies is foreign direct investment. FDI into China tends to be dominated by Asian investors, and Korea plays an increasing role in this respect.

In 2014, Korean companies’ investment in China ― financial sectors such as banking, securities, insurance were excluded ― hit an eight-year high last year and entered the $60 billion zone. By contrast, Japan’s investment in China dramatically decreased during the same period.

Recently, the Korea International Trade Association announced that the real investment of Korean companies in China in 2014 was $3.97 billion, which was 29.7 percent higher than that of the previous year. This is the highest in eight years and is a similar number to that of 2006 ($3.99 billion). Moreover, it is a significant increase when considering the recent annual investment in China has been only around $2 billion to $3 billion. Accordingly, last year, Korea accounted for 3.3 percent, of the total foreign investment in China, which was higher than 2.6 percent in the previous year. In addition, at the end of last year, Korean companies’ cumulative investment in China was $59.82 billion.

While Korean companies’ investment in China rapidly grew, Japanese companies greatly reduced their investment there. Therefore, the annual investment gap between the two countries in China has narrowed to $300 million, KITA has noted.

Japanese companies’ investment in China last year was only $4.33 billion, which was 38.8 percent lower than the previous year. When taking into consideration that Japan’s investment in China was around $7 billion for three years since 2011, which was double that of Korea, last year’s investment was an exceptional figure.

According to the trade agency, Korea’s highest investment in China in eight years is understood as Korean companies gaining interest in entering Chinese domestic markets now that the settlement of the Korea-China FTA is helping to mature the economic cooperation between the two countries. It is expected that the scope of investment will expand, not only because of the reduction of tariff on items owing to the FTA but also because of the opening of service sectors.

Clearly, while the FTA does provide investment opportunities for Korean firms, the bilateral trade between both sides is vulnerable to external pressures and also geopolitical developments.

Some economists have criticized the Korean government for promoting FTAs in such a way as to make the number of FTAs and not their contents the central object. They have pointed out that the conclusion of an FTA should not be its own object since an FTA is only a means to strengthen competitiveness and enhance efficiency, and since Korea’s basic FTA policies focus on external expansion, the effects of trade liberalization are less than what are expected. It remains to be seen how the effects of the Korea-China FTA pan out.

Restrictive Internet platform in Korea

2015-03-10T19:36:00.003+09:00

First published in The Korea Herald.

The Korean government has finally announced its plans to start removing the troublesome ActiveX software from public websites later this month in order to create a more user-friendly Internet environment.

For long, this tech-savvy country has been stuck in a time warp with its slavish dependence on Internet Explorer.

ActiveX controls were one of the many troublesome regulations that President Park Geun-hye vowed to remove in her signature deregulation initiative, and it is good to notice that the government is moving fast.

It is a software framework that defines reusable software components in programming language and has become an integral part of the country’s Internet landscape.

Because it is a nonstandard software, it sometimes has trouble interacting with different browsers and is not really appropriate for mobile platforms. In particular, the system requires users to submit authentication certificates issued by local authorities, making it impossible for people to buy products or make financial transactions online without using Internet Explorer with the ActiveX plugin. In addition, websites of government bodies also use this technology for Internet security.

The Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs announced on March 3 that it would draw up a set of guidelines to remove ActiveX controls from public websites and implement it later this month.

The government has been seeking to help develop alternative technologies to replace the ActiveX controls, the home ministry said, adding that private sector website operators would also join the move to get rid of them in cooperation with other ministries.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning is currently in charge of similar efforts vis-a-vis the private sector. The ministry is also planning to complete its private-sector ActiveX removal efforts by the end of this month.

However, one should not get our hopes too high. Back in 2009, the government and the Korea Communications Commission announced these very same objectives and even set up a task force. They grandly stated that they would make it mandatory for online shopping malls and financial institutions to provide subscribers with an alternative to ActiveX.

It was loudly cheered at that time, but then slowly forgotten, and the policy gathered dust. The same issue is now being revisited and it is hoped the authorities walk the talk.

To provide a little context to this situation, the Korean government was among the first to encourage shopping and banking online, but many people were concerned about Internet safety. The goal was to make Internet shopping very secure, so the government created its own system to authenticate the identities of online buyers. To make purchases, shoppers had to supply their names and registration numbers and apply for government-issued “digital certificates,” which they could present to sellers as proof of ID. This required the additional plug-in ActiveX ― which worked in tandem only with Internet Explorer, the browser that reigned supreme at that time.

Times changed and technology advanced, but the authorities continued with this piece of regulation. As a result, in Korea, when using Web browsers such as Chrome Firefox or Safari, online shopping often begins with a warning that the ActiveX plugin is required.

Those who use Apple computers or have installed Linux variants ― which cannot run Internet Explorer ― are virtually banned from doing any online financial transactions.

They have to either partition their computers and install Windows on one side, or rely on their office desktops, PC rooms and helpful neighbors.

It is really vexing, and I should know, having been a victim of this digital discrimination myself. I replaced my desktop with iMac way back in 2008. While I refuse to have anything to do with Internet Explorer, and also replaced Windows with Ubuntu on my laptop, I had to reluctantly install Windows on a partition of my Korean wife’s iMac, since she has to do most of the shopping and bank work online.

The funny thing is that Microsoft now supports ActiveX in Internet Explorer only as a legacy technology and actively discourages the use of the protocol. In fact, in a security advisory put out by the company a few years ago, the company actively discouraged the use of ActiveX.

It said: “Unfortunately, ActiveX controls are like any other software program ― they can be misused. They can stop your computer from functioning correctly, collect your browsing habits and personal information without your knowledge, or can give you content, like pop-up ads that you don’t want. Also, ‘good’ ActiveX controls might contain unintended code that allows ‘bad’ websites to use them for malicious purposes … . Here’s a good rule to follow: If an ActiveX control is not essential to your computer activity, avoid installing it.”

However, the Korean authorities appear to have ignored the warnings. So it is about time they are straightening things out. This will not only ease the hassles for customers but also grow the e-commerce business.

Last year, the Federation of Korean Industries carried out a survey on this issue and found that Koreans overwhelmingly approve the scrapping of the ActiveX framework, citing it as a hindrance.

According to a survey by the lobbying group for the country’s large conglomerates on 700 people nationwide, 78.6 percent of respondents said they wanted ActiveX software to be discontinued and replaced by a more up-to-date support system that is not so restrictive.

Going into details, the federation said 79.1 percent complained the framework made it a hassle to purchase products online, with 71.7 percent saying it affected bank transactions.

“This is the reason why despite Korea’s advanced information technology infrastructure, the proportion of its online shopping sector compared to its GDP, is much smaller than the United States, Japan and China,” the federation claimed.

For that matter, retail e-commerce sales in the country are expected to reach $36.76 billion in 2015, according to the latest eMarketer estimates of e-commerce and total retail spending around the world. Those figures give South Korea the third-largest retail e-commerce market in the Asia-Pacific, after China and Japan.

There is no doubt that if ActiveX is scrapped, it will breathe new life into the domestic online market place that could attract more buyers at home and abroad. It will go a long way in boosting the e-commerce market in the country, making it a growth engine.