SEOUL, KOREA - A breakfast seminar for the Korea CEO Summit(Chairman Park Bong-kyu) was held at Grand Hyatt Seoul on the 18th. The event featured a lecture by Hong Suk-woo, the Minister of Knowledge Economy on how to grow an apple tree – that is, how Korea can achieve two trillion dollars in trade.
Minister Hong said, “Korea will have problems with job creation unless it continues to grow in the future,” touching on the country’s one-trillion-dollar trade record last year. He compared Korea’s economy to an apple tree: “When we compare the Korean economy to the apples on a tree, we could look at it as having achieved one trillion dollars in trade, however, we ate of all the apples on the tree. “Jobs will continue to grow, as well as young people able to enter the work force only if we move towards a two-trillion-dollar trade economy,” he added. “To do so, we need to make the apples bigger.” Emphasizing that Korea needs to work on both making bigger apples and increasing the production of apples, he made suggestions on how to attain these two goals. While trade policies to date have centered on large corporations, policies must turn to small and medium businesses and middle-class enterprises which comprise a vital role in the economy, he explained. “Mutual growth between SMBs and large corporations,” Minister Hong highlighted, talking about the importance of the win-win relationship between them.
He did not forget to emphasize the role of middle-class enterprises, which refer to companies that are relatively large in size, yet do not belong to a mutual investment group. In connection with the ongoing issues with government support for middle-class enterprises, he pointed out that, “Many businesses do not convert to a middle-class enterprise because such conversion implies significantly less support from the government.” For that reason, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy have enacted a law designed to actively foster middle-class enterprises, in an attempt to create a virtuous cycle by which SMBs can naturally turn into middle-class enterprises, and middle-class enterprises into large corporations.
Minister Hong said that Korea needs to think about, “What kind of apples they will attempt to foster, because the apple tree includes textiles, shipbuilding, automobiles, etc.,” and that the government will promote policies that will benefit the industries in order to achieve the two-trillion-dollar trade mark.
The aviation and atomic power industries were among the new apples that Korea needs to actively breed, according to Minister Hong. He went on to talk about the highly-regarded technology found in Korean atomic power plants. Korea began exporting atomic power plants to the UAE in 2009, becoming the 6th country in the world to export the technology. The exportation of atomic power plants to the UAE recently passed 20 billion dollars. Minister Hong explained, “Apart from the export itself, we require a larger labor force for the operation of exported power plants,” adding that about 2000 professionals should be sent to the UAE by 2016. In other words, exporting atomic power plants will allow the generation of more jobs. According to him, “Currently, Korea is supplying 95 percent of the technology to build an atomic power plant independently, a number which will grow to 100 percent by the end of this year.” He also said, “Korea will become a great apple in the future with its top-notch technology,” before noting that ‘convergence’ is the last apple which needs to be added to achieve the two-trillion-dollar trade. While the country’s main industries consist of those in IT, he explained “convergence is about combining IT with shipbuilding, automobiles, etc.; and we should make the apple bigger by integrating it into a variety of fields including education, law, welfare, and culture.” The purpose of convergence is to create a greater total value by combining two different ones. As Minister Hong said, “The convergence era will now create new foods for the industries. “
