A panel comprised of six current and past officers of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea (AMCHAM-Korea)-Chairman Wayne Chumley (president, Daimer Chrysler Korea); Vice Chairman Il-Young Maing (president, United Technologies Korea); President Tami Overby; Former Chairman William Oberlin (president, Boeing International Korea); Former Chairman Jeffrey Jones (attorney, Kim & Chang); Governor David Ki-Yong Kim (chairman, Cargill Korea); and Governor Chae Wook Lee (president and national executive, General Electric Korea)-led a lively discussion of the direction of the South Korean economy and the business environment in South Korea from the perspective of U.S. business leaders. In their presentations, these senior representatives of the American business community in Korea evenhandedly laid out both the pros and cons of doing business in Korea during a period of historic and unprecedented change. In particular, they assessed the effectiveness of the ongoing reform and deregulation efforts in promoting greater transparency in the industrial, financial and public sectors and the progress of the efforts to bring about greater flexibility in the local labor market. All concurred with the overall assessment that the business climate in Korea is much better than it may seem when viewed from the U.S., a point they also made in Washington during their meetings with members of the U.S. Congress just prior to their stopover in New York for this program. Despite the eagerness on Capitol Hill to talk about the business climate in China, Chumley noted, business in Korea for U.S. firms has never been better. Public perceptions of Korea in the U.S. are tainted by the tense, overly dramatic media coverage of the North Korean nuclear standoff, thus making some U.S. investors jittery. On the contrary, as Maing pointed out, Seoul residents are more concerned about traffic than nuclear war. Smart corporations have taken advantage of South Korea's size and location to make it a test market and logistics hub for all of East Asia. At the same time, however, the panelists stressed that doing business in Korea isn't trouble free. The labor market is chronically overregulated, and progress on a free trade agreement between the U.S. and South Korea will likely be held up until Seoul resolves its ban of American beef and its protectionist movie screen quotas. Still, all of them noted in agreement as Overby repeated the organization's mantra: "Korea is the best place in East Asia to invest and the time to invest is now." The program was cosponsored by the Korea Economic Institute (KEI) and the Korean American Chamber of Commerce (KOCHAM).

with 

Wayne Chumley
President, Daimer Chrysler Korea

Il-Young Maing
President, United Technologies Korea

Tami Overby
President, AMCHAM-Korea

William Oberlin
President, Boeing International Korea
Former Chairman, AMCHAM-Korea

Jeffrey Jones
Attorney, Kim & Chang
Former Chairman, AMCHAM-Korea

Governor David Ki-Young Kim
Chairman, Cargill Korea

Governor Chae Wook Lee
President and National Executive, General Electric Korea

Thursday, May 12 2005