"I propped up the tomato shoots with a stake, sprinkled water on the leek field, and mounded soil around the eggplant..."
On the 16th of this month, at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry's Jeju Forum, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jung-kwan recited the poem "A Job Well Done" by poet Moon Tae-jun. His pledge to nurture new industrial shoots by using support and deregulation as water and stakes was one that felt both urgent to the business leaders in the audience and left them doubtful about whether it would be realized.
During the question-and-answer session that followed, one participant took the microphone. "If you remove ten regulations, a hundred new ones spring up behind them. Unless the country fundamentally changes, nothing will be solved." It was a criticism that the deregulation the government touts remains merely a formality or is being replaced by yet more regulation. Kim, who had risen to the position of company president in the corporate world, offered no rebuttal, instead saying he "deeply sympathized" and vowing change.
It is no exaggeration. The reality on the ground is that even when one regulation is painfully unwound, a single line in the text of a newly created regulation spreads into dozens of disputes. The so-called Yellow Envelope Law is a prime example. Just four months after it took effect, some 1,100 subcontractor unions demanded negotiations with about 400 prime contractors, and confusion has continued because the law includes even "management decisions affecting working conditions" as subjects of industrial disputes.
The demands for "performance pay equal to N% of operating profit," which have spread from semiconductors to industry as a whole, are likewise rooted in differing interpretations over whether they constitute subjects of industrial disputes. There are even concerns that "at this rate, building a new factory or matters of inheritance could become subject to strikes." While the government, which ought to be clearing away regulations, has been preoccupied with holding discussion forums across ministries over how to distribute the excess profits (?) of specific industries, the wall of regulation that businesses feel has grown thicker still.
The minister's poetic metaphor was apt. Saplings grow only when watered. The problem is whether that water is reaching the roots. In that regard, it is a relief that President Lee Jae-myung, at the State Council meeting on the 21st, pointed out that the scope of industrial disputes under the Yellow Envelope Law "is being expanded far too broadly" and ordered the establishment of clear standards.
There are countless sites, including in advanced industries, that are bound by outdated regulations and missing the timing for investment and growth. Placing a single stake will not raise up an entire swaying tree. It is now time for bolder, all-encompassing support that the entire industrial ecosystem can feel.
