40% of Foreign Businesspeople Warn of Crisis
By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
Four in every 10 foreign businesspeople here can empathize with the warning message that South Korea could suffer another economic crisis in the foreseeable future, a poll conducted by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) showed Tuesday.
According to the survey, 39.9 percent of foreigners doing business here think the country will could face an economic crisis in 5 to 6 years, although 60.7 percent said it was unlikely.
The FKI, the country’s largest business lobbying group, said it has canvassed a total of 100 commercial attaches in diplomatic missions here as well as private entrepreneurs from foreign nations to sound out their thoughts on South Korea’s overseas competitive power.
Foreign businesspeople residing in the country cited the ``chase of emerging economies including China and India’’ (36 percent) as the most serious factor that would threaten the South Korean economy in the coming years.
Others also picked up such exterior factors as ``rising prices of raw materials’’ (21.3 percent) and ``security concerns from the North Korean nuclear crisis’’ (2.2 percent) as challenges to the South Korean economy.
Respondents said South Korean firms should ``readjust organizations to a global level’’ (29.8 percent), ``try to develop technologies’’ (19.4 percent) and ``improve the high-land prices, high-wage structure’’ (15.3 percent) in order to fortify competitiveness abroad.
In the meantime, a majority of foreign businesspeople forecast that the country’s main export industries such as shipbuilding, mobile telecommunications devices, digital home appliances would not lose their competitive edge.
About half of the respondents said the country’s petrochemical, steel, machinery and automobile industries would at least maintain their current competitive power in the coming several years.
As for unfavorable factors in the business environment, 38.2 percent cited ``high land prices and high wages,’’ followed by the ``strong labor union and the labor-management dispute’’ (21.8 percent) and ``excessive government regulations’’ (11.8 percent).
On the contrary, 53.3 percent chose the ``information and industry infrastructure’’ as the most favorable business environment, followed by ``high educational fever and excellent manpower’’ (35.6 percent) and ``government-corporate cooperation’’ (6.7 percent).
The FKI said that the survey was conducted from Oct. 25 to Nov. 20 based both on written questionnaires and interviews. A total of 84 people out of the 100 responded to the survey, according to the federation.