By Cho Jin-seo
Staff reporter
South Korea's finance minister called for support from the private sector to invigorate the global economy and for more candid communication between governments and businesses.
Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said that "grand coordination" was needed between the private sector and governments in establishing a new global economic order. He was speaking at a G-20 Business Summit, which was held in conjunction with the G-20 Presidential Summit over the weekend.
Yoon's view on public-private cooperation was echoed by Angel Guria, the head of the OECD, but was met with a thorny reception from the meeting's hosts and the Canadian private sector.
"We need to build a new architecture for the global economic order. To do that, we need to open an era of grand coordination between governments and the private sector, which is a step ahead of the inter-states policy coordination system," Yoon said in his keynote speech on Friday evening.
OECD chief Guria was more specific to point out that the role of the private sector should be creating more jobs.
"First of all, joblessness is unacceptably high. This is the human face of the crisis that we need to continue to address effectively," he said. "Business too has a role to play by initiating new investments and hiring to expand productive capacity in order to be ready to take advantage of the recovery. Together we can build a stronger, cleaner, fairer world economy."
There was an air of indifference in the way the Canadian business representatives responded to Yoon and Guria's speeches. The businessmen agreed on the need to create more jobs, but not in the form of an artificial increase of employment enforced by the government. Instead, they urged that it was the governments' responsibility to adopt policies that support the launch and growth of small- and medium-sized firms.
The businessmen were also opposed to tighter financial regulations especially in the form of a bank tax, the host of the meeting said.
"I must tell you that I heard absolutely no support for the concept of a global bank tax or for a fund to be available in future crises," said John Manley, the head of Canadian Council of Chief Executives, in his wrap-up of the conference.
"Fairly or unfairly, the recent crisis has left a lot of people around the world blaming bankers for the state of the economy. The recession also has sparked some hostility toward business in general, and, in some countries, this is leading to policy decisions based on populism and aimed at punishment rather than shaping sensible solutions to real problems," he said.
The G-20 Business Summit, dubbed B-20, was hosted by the business lobby of Canadian firms as a side-event to the G-20's main summit, attended by political leaders. South Korea's delegation was composed of Jung Byung-chul, vice chairman of Federation of Korean Industries, and Shin Dong-kyu, chairman of Korea Federation of Banks.
Seoul is planning to hold its own business conference in November just before it hosts the second G-20 summit of the year. The list of the invitees is not confirmed yet and will remain confidential as long as possible, but "we are working hard to attracting the most influential businesspeople in the world," a high-ranking official at the presidential office said last week.