The ombudsman said, "I have visited corporate management sites to identify and alleviate even minor regulations to support corporate growth. Regulatory innovation in the AI era is more important than anything for corporate growth."
On the 18th, two days before his first anniversary in office, Ombudsman Choi Seung-jae emphasized "growth through the improvement of regulations affecting small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners." The ombudsman for small and medium-sized enterprises is an independent agency that improves the difficulties and management challenges of medium and small enterprises as well as small business owners, addressing unnecessary regulations.
Ombudsman Choi took office as the 6th ombudsman for small and medium-sized enterprises on August 20 last year. He is an expert in small business and medium-sized enterprises, having served as the president of the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise (KFME) and a member of the 21st National Assembly. Notably strong on-site, since taking office as ombudsman, he has visited local small and medium enterprises and small business organizations approximately 84 times, listening to their real voices regarding management challenges and unreasonable regulations that hinder their growth and seeking solutions.
Ombudsman Choi noted, "I tried to visit the sites to listen to their real stories and work to solve issues like entrenched inequalities and regulations affecting small and medium-sized enterprises." The ombudsman has proposed improvements to the relevant regulations to government agencies that manage those regulations and is taking steps to practically alleviate them.
Ombudsman Choi emphasized two cases of "regulatory improvement recommendations" on February 2. He said, "I led the exemption of subsidies for electric vehicles for research and development from the Ministry of Environment and the removal of co-signing regulations remaining in 106 local government ordinances across 75 municipalities."
Ombudsman Choi also strengthened the Ombudsman Committee that serves as an advisory body for regulatory improvements. Since taking office, Ombudsman Choi has newly appointed eight private sector experts in fields such as industry, environment, and employment, increasing the number of experts to 14. He reviewed the recommendations for regulatory improvements with these experts and checked the implementation recommendations and follow-up actions targeted at relevant institutions.
Ombudsman Choi pointed out the limitations of practical regulatory improvements as difficulties. He noted that persuading government agencies to relax regulations is not easy. Due to various stakeholders, thorough reviews are necessary, and potential issues arising from post-relaxation of regulations must also be considered.
Ombudsman Choi emphasized, "I will enhance the function of discovering and solving on-site difficulties of the ombudsman while expanding social consensus on the necessity of regulatory innovation." He added, "I will strengthen our role as a control tower for regulatory innovation by expanding strategic collaboration networks with the government, local governments, and related agencies."
Ombudsman Choi also emphasized, "I will play a role in improving systems and relaxing regulations so that small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners will not fall behind in technological advancements in the AI era."