President Moon Vows to Reform South Korean Business Conglomerates
Good luck with this because chaebol reform has been something that Korean politicians have tried in the past and it never seems to create much change in how they are run:
Moon Jae-in, who is sure to be South Korea’s next president, is expected to focus on the country’s four biggest conglomerates as he pushes for a broad corporate reform drive, his economic aides said Wednesday.
The new Moon government has two major goals in reforming the business giants: one is to keep growth and wealth from being concentrated in large family-run companies known as chaebol, and the other is to improve their governance structure for transparency and fair competition, Moon’s chaebol policy adviser Kim Sang-jo told Yonhap News Agency.
South Korea’s four largest chaebol groups — Samsung Group, Hyundai Motor Group, SK Group and LG Group — currently account for half the assets held by the country’s top 30 companies.
In his campaign pledges, Moon vowed to “gradually but fully” achieve his reform goals during his five-year term in office that began Wednesday, a day after the people voted him in. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link.
The Cayman Islands says “Ahn nyeong ha se yo”.
“Fair play” coming from the government is almost certainly the government picking winners and losers in guise of leveling the playing field.
Sounds like Moon may not last a year…
This is so simple that I could do it with a black marker.
It isn’t really necessary to damage/limit/regulate/control/pester/etc the chaebols.
That sounds good and feels good… but they are important to Korea… which is likely why nothing changes when it gets down to it.
What really needs to be done is a wholesale slaughter of rules/regulations/laws/structures/etc that are designed to block any competition in the industries the chaebols and other large companies control.
Many of these fake rules claim to promote safety or protect the environment… but are really designed to protect the domestic market for large companies or give a de facto monopoly on exports.
Worse, some of these rules protect industries that don’t really exist anymore so the need has to be filled with imports rather than domestic startups.
This is bad for Korea in every way.
Sidenote: In some industries, the Korean government GIVES money to startups… specially ones with a plan to export. But in many industries, everything is designed to reduce competition and protect the near-monopolies of the large companies.
Hopefully President Moon recognizes this and spends more time encouraging business than regulating it.