The newly elected chief of a major South Korean business lobby group said Thursday he will focus on helping small and medium enterprises expand overseas and boost exports as part of plans to improve the country's sluggish economic growth.
"(We) have a firm belief that further overseas expansion of our local firms will be the impetus for their growth as well as the country's development," said Kim In-ho, new chairman of the Korea International Trade Association during his inauguration speech.
"Since the global financial crisis, the world economy has entered the so-called 'new normal' generation of persistent low growth," Kim said, adding that South Korea's average growth in the past three years has been lagging at 2.9 percent, far below the past 10-year average of 3.7 percent.
The 73-year-old bureaucrat-turned-lobbyist emphasized that one way to boost economic growth amid adverse conditions is to support local SMEs' business overseas.
"Especially, we will try our best to push up the portion of exports by SMEs, which currently stands at a mere 34 percent," Kim said. But small and medium-sized companies in Asia's fourth-largest economy lack competency and export know-how in comparison to multinational conglomerates, he said.
The new KITA chairman also put forward his promise to utilize South Korea's capabilities in the information and technology sector as a means to create a synergy effect with other industries.
"We will also work to create new a source of profits by combining the country's excellent IT technology with other industries in the culture, medicine, education, finance and service sectors, and lead companies to log more exports via policy guidance and easing regulations," Kim said.
Kim began his career in 1966 as a government official at the then Economic Planning Board, the predecessor of the current Ministry of Strategy and Finance, and has served in major policymaking posts.
He was also in charge of a consumer protection agency in 1993 and headed the Fair Trade Commission, an antitrust watchdog, before taking a position as a senior presidential secretary for economic affairs in 1997.
He has been leading a private economic think tank since 2008.
KITA is one of the country's five major business lobby groups including the Federation of Korean Industries and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, both of which recently decided to keep their incumbent chairmen -- Huh Chang-soo and Park Yong-mann -- for another term. (Yonhap)
