Chey Tae-won, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and SK Group, said, "The economy will not grow if regulations are not loosened according to the size of corporations."
During the "Corporate Growth Forum" held at the Lotte Hotel in Sogong-dong, Seoul, on 4th, Chey noted, "In the past, when there was rapid growth, policies that supported small and medium-sized enterprises while regulating large corporations were effective, but in a period like now, where growth is not happening, such regulations will prevent anyone from growing."
On that day, KORCHAM launched the Corporate Growth Forum in collaboration with the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) and the Korea Federation of SMEs (middle market coalition). This forum was created to break down regulatory barriers hindering corporate growth and to propose policy alternatives.
Chey said, "The larger the size of a corporation, the more regulations increase, so there is almost no thought of needing to grow, which ultimately leads to stagnation in overall economic growth," and added, "Among 10,000 small and medium-sized enterprises, 4 are growing into mid-sized corporations, while only 1 or 2 out of 100 mid-sized corporations grow into large corporations."
During his speech, he revealed a video interview with mid-sized corporations and said, "One company mentioned the difficulties it faced after becoming a mid-sized corporation from a small one, while another expressed that it wants to grow further from a small enterprise, but it faces many challenges due to increasing regulations and other aspects."
He also showed a large panel listing 343 regulations. According to the results of a "Differential Regulation Survey" jointly conducted by KORCHAM and a research team led by Professor Kim Young-joo from Busan National University, there are 343 differential regulations per corporation related to only 12 economic laws. For small and medium-sized enterprises becoming mid-sized corporations, regulations increase by 94, and when they become large corporations, they increase by 329.
Chey stated, "This tiered regulation is a fundamental reason for stagnation in South Korea's growth, especially diminishing the vitality of the private sector," adding, "If this situation continues, we could face a scenario where everyone returns to being a small enterprise. A system that supports growing corporations while retaining only the necessary regulations is needed."
Chey emphasized, "It is important to create economic momentum that can sustain a growth rate of 3-5%" and stated, "We need to abolish regulations by size, not to eliminate all regulations, but to adopt a method that rewards corporations that achieve results." He continued, "Just like how additional export financing was supported when targets were met during the past export-led economic initiatives, we should induce small and medium-sized corporations to become mid-sized and large corporations for the economy to grow."