ed Welfare program

5-year plan needed to strengthen social cohesion

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Korea’s initiation of a five-year economic development program. Few deny the fact that the plans are attributable to making Korea what it is today. The time has come for the country to chart a five-year welfare program for strengthening social cohesion.

From 1962 until 1996, the country had implemented a five-year plan five times. This provided Korea with a roadmap for economic takeoff. The plan has given the people a sense of the direction in which the country should take for economic prosperity. Under the scheme, all people devoted their energy to bettering economic growth.

At the time the program started, per-capita GDP was $87. Now the average income has surpassed $20,000. The formerly aid-dependent Korea recorded combined exports and imports of $1 trillion last year, becoming the ninth country to achieve the milestone. It has now become the world's eighth largest trading nation. The average height of Koreans in their 20s is 176 centimeters, the highest among that age group in Asia.

When the late Park Chung-hee hatched this plan, opponents discounted it as a socialist development model. At that time, North Korea was ahead of the South economically.

The program has become a model for other developing countries. Under the Knowledge Sharing Program, many countries have benchmarked the plan for their economic development.

Now Korea needs to initiate a new series of five-year welfare programs. The plan would help the country put into practice a welfare program on a medium- and long-term basis. It should link welfare spending to the budget. This would strengthen fiscal discipline. It would discourage people from having an exaggerated sense of enjoying welfare benefits beyond fiscal prudence. The program should make it clear that expanding welfare is impossible without economic growth.

The plan should chart a course to allocate the limited resources to maximizing people’s welfare and narrowing income disparity. It should have principles and keep either liberal or conservative governments from pledging unprincipled pork-barrel programs.

The country can use the success and failure models of industrialized countries so that Korea does not repeat the same mistakes. The current fiscal woes in some European Union countries are attributable to their directionless and visionless welfare programs.

The five-year welfare program is crucial because Korea's single-term five-year presidential system has prevented incumbent heads of state from charting consistent policies. Regardless of changes in government, Korea must put a consistent welfare program on the right track. The plan needs bipartisan approval from the National Assembly.

This will also restrain parties from trumpeting welfare populism, which raises its ugly head ahead of elections.

This plan would enable Korea to repeat the miracle in welfare programs. If successful, it would also become a model for other developing countries.