Big crowd gathers at Cheong Wa Dae
Participants listen to President Park Geun-hye speak during a deregulation conference at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. / Yonhap
By Kim Tae-gyu
President Park Geun-hye checks documents in a conference aimed at discussing deregulations held at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. / Yonhap
Federation of Korean Industries Chairman Huh Chang-soo reads a document during a deregulation conference at Cheong Wa Dae, Thursday. / Yonhap
Around 160 bureaucrats, experts and ordinary people took part in a conference Thursday designed to discuss ways of how to repeal non-essential regulations in order to boost the economy.
President Park Geun-hye and most of her Cabinet members and secretaries were part of the six-hour gathering that also featured business lobby group representatives, entrepreneurs and ordinary merchants.
Of note is that only one foreigner, British Ambassador to Korea Scott Wightman, took part in the meeting, which was nationally televised.
Business groups claimed that Korea needs to make more of an effort to scrap unnecessary regulations and bureaucratic red tape so that Asia’s No. 4 economy will be able to achieve faster economic expansion.
Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Park Yong-maan said that as far as regulations are concerned, the country lags far behind the global standard as demonstrated by low rankings.
“According to the World Economic Forum, Korea was stuck in the 95th position in the regulation evaluation, which is disappointing,” said Park who is also chairman of the Doosan Group.
“We do not oppose all the regulations. We take issue with excessive regulations and those which are deemed obsolete or fail to meet international standards.”
Federation of Korean Industries Vice Chairman Lee Seung-cheol said that Korea has to root out “Galapagos regulations,” which are not found in other countries like unique creatures in the volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean.
“We have many ‘Galapagos regulations,’ which foreigners simply cannot understand at all. For one, domestic insurers are not allowed to sell their products to foreigners,” Lee said.
“Plus, the ceiling on new apartment prices is problematic, which even the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) proposed to cancel. We also have to allow rent-a-car companies to arrange drivers for clients.”
To curb the ever-rising apartment prices in the mid and late 2000s, Korea ushered in a policy of imposing a ceiling on newly built apartment prices.
As the housing market has slumped for the past few years in the wake of the global financial crisis, construction companies have proactively asked the government to jettison the policy, but such requests were not accepted.