[THE INVESTOR] A private think tank aspiring to become Korea’s answer to the Brookings Institution of the United States has been launched. The Future Consensus Institute was founded by Cho Chang-geol, the founder and honorary chairman of Hanssem Co., Korea’s leading interior company that provides furniture, appliances and household accessories.Cho has promised to contribute 400 billion won ($357 million) worth of his shareholdings in Hanssem to the institute to ensure its financial independence.

[THE INVESTOR] The Korean business community is abuzz with talk of corporate restructuring, as a special law took effect last week to help companies suffering from an oversupply in their industrial sectors reorganize their businesses.The Special Act on Corporate Revitalization, commonly called the “one-shot act,” is designed to encourage companies to make voluntary and pre-emptive restructuring efforts before their businesses go from bad to worse.It provides a wide range of benefits to companies

[THE INVESTOR] The Korea Communications Commission has imposed 180 million won ($163,000) in fines on Lotte Homeshopping for selling the personal information of its customers to other companies.But the fines were too small compared to the revenue Lotte earned through the sale of customer data. The home shopping channel earned 3.7 billion won between 2009 and 2014 by selling 3.24 million pieces of customer data to insurance companies.The fines were small because they were levied for a fraction of

[THE INVESTOR] Disputes are escalating between the central government and the Seoul Metropolitan Government over the provision of cash allowances to job seekers. The row was ignited by the city government’s scheme to provide 3,000 young job seekers with 500,000 won ($450) a month for up to six months.The central government opposed the plan, calling it a typical populist program. It argued that the scheme could not be seen as an employment promotion program as it allowed the recipients to use the

[THE INVESTOR] The government is pushing to enact a law aimed at preventing the national debt from rising too rapidly. The move is well advised, as fiscal principles need to be set in stone if they are to be strictly followed.A draft bill disclosed by the Finance Ministry proposes to make it a rule for the central government to keep its debt below 45 percent of gross domestic product.It also proposes to set the ceiling for annual budget deficit at 3 percent of GDP. The ministry’s proposal also i

[THE INVESTOR] Standard & Poor’s has raised Korea’s sovereign rating by one notch to AA from AA-. The upgrade is surely welcome news, but it should not lead to complacency.The rating S&P awarded to Korea, which is the third highest on the agency’s rating table, is a record high for Korea. It is equivalent to the Aa2 rating that Moody’s Investors Service gave Korea in December 2015.The upgrade places Korea on the same level as the United Kingdom, France and Belgium, and two levels higher than Jap

[THE INVESTOR] Fresh allegations of accounting fraud have surfaced at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, this time involving the troubled company’s incumbent management.Prosecutors have already questioned Kim Yeol-jung, the shipbuilder’s chief financial officer, over the suspicions that he had manipulated the company’s financial statements to reduce its 2015 operating losses by 120 billion won ($108 million).Investigators suspect that Daewoo’s incumbent president Chung Sung-lip has been a

[THE INVESTOR] As the scorching heat wave continues, complaints are growing about the current electricity pricing system in South Korea. Many grumble that they cannot keep their air conditioners on due to concerns about high electricity bills.The power bill for a household that consumes 200 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month is 25,000 won (about $22.5). But the rate would soar to 250,000 won if it consumes 600 kWh by running an air conditioner eight hours a day throughout the month. While t

[THE INVESTOR] Since 2013, the Ministry of Education has sought to weed out poorly managed universities as demand for higher education is forecast to drop due to the falling population of high school graduates.Yet the ministry has made little progress thus far. Last month, Hanlyo University in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, announced it would close in the second half of the year, becoming the first university to do so under the incumbent government. Under the preceding administration, six uni

[THE INVESTOR] In Korea, research on creating stem cell lines using cloned human embryos has been virtually suspended following the cloning scandal of Hwang Woo-suk, which erupted in 2005 causing a stir around the world.Hwang, then a professor at Seoul National University, claimed that he had successfully established stem cell lines from cloned embryos. But his work was discredited as he was found to have fabricated a series of experiments.The scandal prompted the government to enact the Bioethi

[THE INVESTOR] The National Assembly’s Special Committee on Budget and Accounts has recently pointed out in a report the need to reduce the proportion of wage earners exempted from income tax. The committee has expressed concern that the ever-expanding share of workers who do not pay any income tax could have negative effects on the government’s tax revenue in the long term as it would deter the expansion of the taxation base.Last year, of the 16.7 million Korean workers, 8.02 million, or 48.1 p

[THE INVESTOR] The Fair Trade Commission has unexpectedly put the brakes on mobile giant SK Telecom’s plan to acquire CJ HelloVision, a leading cable TV operator. The decision was ill-advised as it deters the development of the nation’s broadcast industry.Last November, SKT agreed to acquire a 53.9-percent stake in CJ HelloVision from CJ Group for 1 trillion won ($870 million). It planned to merge the cable TV operator with SK Broadband, an affiliate that provides Internet TV services.The deal w

[THE INVESTOR] The main opposition The Minjoo Party of Korea has unveiled a plan to overhaul the health insurance system amid widespread discontent about the way insurance premiums are determined.The party’s plan proposes making aggregate income the single criterion for setting premiums for the two types of policyholders -- employees and the self-employed.Currently, insurance contributions for employees are set based solely on their wage income and are shared equally between the employee and emp

[THE INVESTOR] The government’s plan to develop Korea’s own space launch vehicle for lunar exploration by 2020 is likely to be delayed as the test launch of the rocket scheduled for December 2017 is to be postponed.The Korea Aerospace Research Institute has reported to the government that the development of a 75-ton class liquid engine and fuel tanks for the test launch vehicle is 10 months behind schedule due to difficulties in sorting out technological problems.The institute had difficulty in