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Home  Corporate Affairs
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Corporate Affairs
Our corporate affairs project area provides the international business community with unique access to the issues and individuals that define U.S.-Korea business relations in a rapidly changing global environment. The programs offered in this project area include conferences, seminars and forums that help Americans and Koreans meet the challenges of doing business together. These programs bring together Korean and American leaders from government, business, the media, academia and international organizations for frank and interactive discussions of the current economic, political and security topics that affect U.S.-Korea relations in a global context.
The focus of this project area is to explore and clarify the major issues affecting the economic partnership between the U.S. and Korea by providing opportunities for interaction between major players in both the private and public sectors of both countries. The objective is to promote a better understanding of the potential for mutually beneficial collaboration within a rapidly changing global environment.
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Speaking at an afternoon forum, Stephen Pelletier, chairman and CEO of Prudential International Investments, told his audience what they already knew: South Korea's rapid industrialization following the Korean War is the envy of developing economies across the globe. Then he told them what to expect from South Korea in the near future: an equally ambitious attempt to build its own financial infrastructure and with it, become Northeast Asia's hub for financial services and investment. To make its economy's second act a successful one, South Korea will have to take several steps, such as continuing to improve corporate governance. Pelletier thinks that ultimately it will succeed. That's why Prudential International Investments has decided to set up a new regional office in Korea for their international asset management business. Pelletier's presentation also addressed emerging trends in Korea's equity and debt markets. |
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New Paradigm for South-North Korean Cooperation: The Incheon-Kaesong Joint Development Zone The "trickle down" theory might be economically dubious, but there's something to it where inter-Korean dialog and cooperation are concerned. Addressing an audience of law school students and Korea experts at Columbia University, Ahn Sang-Soo, mayor of Incheon, outlined his unique efforts to use local administration to reach out to North Korea. Until recently, he noted, policies governing rapprochement with the North were initiated exclusively by the central government in Seoul. But following a visit by a DPRK delegation to Incheon in 2004, Ahn set the wheels in motion for engagement efforts initiated the level of local government. In May 2005 Ahn led a first-of-its-kind municipal delegation to Pyongyang. While there, he floated the idea of creating a new joint development zone that would stretch across the DMZ, encompassing Kaesong's new industrial facilities and Incheon's logistical base. If Kaesong's labor cost advantages were wedded to Incheon's port and airport, he argued, the combined area would have an enviable advantage in the export market. He also raised the prospect of establishing a bridge across the DMZ that could get Kaesong's goods to Incheon faster. Ahn told the audience that he would eventually like to see the joint development zone expand into a "golden peace triangle" that would draw Seoul's financial resources and educated entrepreneurs into the economic equation. Any actual development of this concept may be years away, he noted, but the fact remains that the two sides of the divided Korea did take an initial trust-building step. While in Pyongyang, Ahn also signed an agreement with his North Korean counterparts to enter a joint Incheon/Pyongyang bid for the 2014 Asian Games. Donald P. Gregg, president and chairman, The Korea Society, Roh Jeong-Ho, the then director of the Korean Legal Center, Columbia Law School, Shin Hyun-Yoon, professor of law, Yonsei University, and Seo Jung Uck, former ROK minister of science and technology, provided commentary on Mayor Ahn's address. This forum was cosponsored with the Center for Korean Legal Studies at Columbia Law School and the Center for American Legal Studies at Yonsei University's College of Law. |
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Officials from the Busan Port Authority (BPA) were making their first foray into North America when they spoke to business leaders from the shipping, logistics and finance industries at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel in New York, and the message they brought was just as fresh. Busan-already Asia's fifth largest port by volume and the second largest city in Korea-is undergoing a surge of new development, and American investors can ride the rising tide by getting in now on the newly created Busan-Jinhae Free Economic Zone (BJFEZ). The impetus behind Busan's growth is the South Korean government's goal of transforming the country from a low-cost manufacturing center to a knowledge-based financial and logistics hub for Northeast Asia. Towards that end, the BPA is backing the construction of new harbor berths capable of handling the largest cargo vessels on earth and a massive new distribution park, among other improvements. Foreign businesses that pour capital into new Busan operations will receive a 100-percent tax break for the first two years they're in business, and 50-percent breaks for the next three years. Bill Woo, director of the BJFEZ, ticked off additional benefits of locating in Busan for attendees before the forum closed-including new international hospitals and schools as well as the harmonious labor relations between management and dockworkers. As far as he was concerned, he said, the BJFEZ is "the rising sun of Northeast Asia." This program was organized by BPA, BJFEZ and the Korea International Trade Association. The Korea Society was one three supporting organizations. |
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A two-day forum copresented by Woori Investment Bank, Institutional Investor magazine and The Korea Society connected leaders from top Korean conglomerates and American financial experts with interested investors. The gilded Art Deco inlays and marble floors at the Waldorf=Astoria Hotel spoke to the wealth of old New York, but those who gathered in these storied premises for the forum were firmly focused on the profits to be made in Seoul. The clear message that emerged from this high profile gathering was that investing in an economically vibrant South Korea is a bet that will pay off handsomely despite the rise of high-profile competitors in the Asian region such as China and India. Jonathan Lemcor, a senior sovereign credit strategist with The Vanguard Group, noted that South Korea may be a shrimp among whales demographically, but when measured in terms of per capita disposable income, it actually is three times the size of China and seven times the size of size of India. Indeed, the rapid growth of China and India present an array of profitable opportunities for South Korean companies. Richard Yi, vice president of Samsung Electronics, said that his company has shifted from seeing China simply as a low-cost production center to viewing it as a high value-added end market. South Korea's economic climate is set to get warmer still, and it will be easier for foreign capitalists to cash in on it. Lee Jang-Yung, an assistant governor at Korea's Financial Supervisory Service, oriented investors towards the future by outlining his government's ambitious plan to turn South Korea into a hub of the financial services industry. June 2-3, 2005 |
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