Prime Minister Han Seung-soo |
By Na Jeong-ju, Lee Tae-hoon
Staff Reporters
Prime Minister Han Seung-soo indicated Tuesday that Korea will launch a drive to promote the positive side of the economy among international media, saying the country's economic situation is not portrayed accurately overseas.
``Korea has fared well compared to other economies despite a plunge in global demand,'' Han told a weekly Cabinet meeting. ``Korea's current account recorded a surplus of $330 million in February, an optimistic sign that the economy is doing quite well amid a worldwide recession. However, such positive aspects are often ignored in media reports,'' he said.
The comments came amid growing fears of a financial crisis here in March, with some foreign media and investment banks churning out pessimistic views of the local economy, citing its large short-term external debt.
The prime minister instructed the Cabinet to step up efforts to promote Korea's economic situation among global media, his office said.
Some policymakers are calling for the need to set up a team at Cheong Wa Dae to deal with overseas' reports.
Former President Roh Moo-hyun had a secretary to react to international media reports and set up policies on these, but President Lee Myung-bak scrapped the bureau as part of efforts to streamline state organizations.
Michael Breen, chairman of Insight Communications Consultants in Seoul, said, ``If the government considers reporting on Korea to be misleading, it should improve its communications rather than criticize the media.''
Lim Yun-suk, outgoing president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club, said that there are two main reasons behind the foreign news media's tilted and often exaggerated views of the economy.
First, the Lee Myung-bak administration, which marked the first anniversary of its inauguration last week, drastically decreased the number of briefings for foreign journalists, Lim said in a contribution to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper, Monday.
She said that many ministers and policymakers shun press conferences, often giving foreign reporters the impression that they are hiding something.
Secondly, as all eyes of the international community are on the North Korean nuclear issue and the Stalinist regime's provocative moves, the Korean Peninsula is often perceived as a country with impending danger or possible military conflict, she said.
Lim said that in order to cope with the negative publicity overseas, rather than retorting to foreign media's negative reports on the economy, the government should make more effort to analyze why they made such remarks and find ways to prevent them from recurring.
Lastly, she pointed out that the government should hire staff exclusively handling foreign media.
She said that such media specialists helped Korea promptly react to foreign media during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis but disappeared after the restructuring of government agencies early last year under the Lee administration.
The Seoul government is particularly annoyed by the British media, including the Financial Times, The Times and the Economist. Since the second half of last year, the government formally reacted to 10 instances of foreign media coverage, including seven British reports. it viewed as either ``distorted'' or ``intentionally malicious.''
A finance ministry official said the British media is critical of the Korean economy presumably because they perceive Korea as ``closed'' even though it is thriving on exports. Furthermore, the Roh Moo-hyun administration fanned antipathy among foreign journalists through its tax audits and investigations into Lone Star Funds.
The British media in particular is closely monitoring the Korean market because 47 percent of Korean debt comes from the EU, he added. A Financial Supervisory Service official said about half of foreign holdings of local stocks are held by EU investors. He added foreign investors want to know details of the Korean economy but foreign journalists have difficulty getting authoritative data, forcing them to rely on misguided and unfiltered information or rumors.
jj@koreatimes.co.kr
leeth@koreatimes.co.kr
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