[Editorial] N.K.’s saber-rattling

North Korea is escalating its missile and rocket threats, with South Korean military authorities and foreign policy makers on alert and trying to grasp the motives behind the latest provocations. North Korea fired 46 short-range rockets from its east coast over the weekend. It fired 30 FROG ground-to-ground rockets into the East Sea early Saturday, followed by 16 more early Sunday morning. The North began firing the latest series of short-range missiles and rockets on Feb. 21 and the Sunday firi

March 24, 2014

[Editorial] Income inequality

President Park Geun-hye has been pushing for sweeping deregulation as she believes this to be the most effective and efficient way to spur the country’s sluggish economy. In a move to demonstrate her commitment to eliminating unnecessary regulations, she listened to complaints from businesspeople and ordered government regulators to look for remedies during a nationally televised meeting last week.Park told participants at the meeting that she believed deregulation was the only cost-free way to

March 23, 2014

[Editorial] Summits in The Hague

The third Nuclear Security Summit to open in The Hague on Monday is set to become an unexpected stage to test President Park Geun-hye’s diplomatic adroitness. Since she took office in February last year, Park has been successful in cultivating friendly ties with leaders of the neighboring powers, except for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has angered South Koreans with his denial of Japan’s wartime wrongdoings.During the two-day summit, which comes in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation

March 23, 2014

[Editorial] Watching out for watchdog

Hardly a day goes by without news about financial scandals breaking out. A massive theft of credit card users’ data shook the nation recently. This was followed by illegal loan scandals involving Tokyo branches of two major banks, and another massive loan fraud case is now being unraveled. These cases raised doubts about, among other things, the capabilities of the nation’s financial regulators and watchdogs ― namely the Financial Supervisory Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service. The

March 21, 2014

[Editorial] China’s outdated shield

It is common for China to stand by North Korea, its communist ally, in the international arena. Yet its move to block the latest U.N. action against human rights abuses perpetrated by the leadership in Pyongyang has the international community concerned. The U.N. Human Rights Council, which had drawn up the most comprehensive report yet on human rights violations in North Korea, plans to adopt a resolution and send it to the U.N. Security Council. It hopes the Security Council will take up the r

March 21, 2014

[Editorial] Reforesting North Korea

Looking northward from South Korea’s observatories along the Demilitarized Zone, you will see North Korean mountains almost bare. It is said that many defectors who fled the North on boats felt relieved to know that they had entered South Korean waters upon seeing coastal hills with dense forests.As of the end of 2008, North Korea had lost nearly one-third of its forests, according to U.N. estimates. Among the 180 countries surveyed by a U.K.-based risk consulting company in 2011, it had the thi

March 20, 2014

[Editorial] Dispute over platform

Seen from a critical viewpoint, the merger between the main opposition Democratic Party and a group led by software mogul-turned-lawmaker Ahn Cheol-soo may be nothing but a political maneuver aimed at winning the June local elections and ultimately the presidential vote in 2018. Still, a more positive meaning to this move could be building an opposition force that can become a more constructive and effective alternative to the conservative ruling party.A statement adopted at the convention of fo

March 20, 2014

[Editorial] Super shareholders’ day

One abnormal corporate practice in Korea is that many listed companies hold their annual meetings of shareholders on the same day. Here, March is the convention season for companies that file their annual reports in December. On certain days of the month, especially the second and third Fridays, hundreds of companies convene their general assemblies.This year is no exception. On March 14, a total of 116 companies, including the 17 listed affiliates of Samsung Group and seven subsidiaries of Hyun

March 19, 2014

[Editorial] Korea as gambling hub

The Korean government has taken a cautious first step toward opening the domestic casino market to foreign operators. On Tuesday, it approved for the first time a proposal from a foreign company to operate a casino here.The government’s decision is welcome as it will give a big boost to the domestic tourism industry. Korea needs to open up its casino market to attract much-needed foreign investment in the tourism sector and expand its tourism infrastructure.The company given the Korean governmen

March 19, 2014

[Editorial] Forgery in defense industry

It is common knowledge that the defense industry around the world is vulnerable to corruption. Korea is no exception, and there have been big and small scandals involving corrupt officials, generals and dirty contractors. Yet, the announcement on the latest case is beyond comprehension. The Defense Agency for Technology and Quality said its investigation had found that 241 local defense contractors fabricated or doctored about 2,800 test results of parts and materials for military equipment. The

March 18, 2014

[Editorial] Abe should do more

It is still difficult to predict how soon and in what way South Korea and Japan could mend their ties, sorely strained by the regressive Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Yet the latest developments over the weekend have raised a glimmer of hope. The first positive sign came from Abe on Friday. He said that he would uphold the 1993 Kono Statement and the 1995 Murayama Statement, which respectively acknowledged the Japanese military’s involvement in sex slavery during World War II and apologize

March 18, 2014

[Editorial] Rising divorce rate

In Korea, 1 in 3 couples that tie the knot gets divorced. According to figures from the Supreme Court, there were 329,220 marriages and 114,781 divorces in 2012. The annual numbers have remained similar over the past decade.A recent study by a government-funded legal aid organization showed that the country’s divorce rate ― the number of divorces for every 1,000 people ― reached 2.72 in the 2000s, up more than 13-fold from the figure in the 1950s. The rate stood at 2.3 in 2012.The steep rise in

March 17, 2014

[Editorial] Nuclear safety act

President Park Geun-hye is scheduled to give a speech in the opening session of the third Nuclear Security Summit to be held next week in The Hague, Netherlands. As leader of the chair country of the previous summit that convened in Seoul two years ago, Park will use the address to emphasize the importance of international efforts to strengthen security, prevent nuclear terrorism and to set a way forward, according to her aides.In the following session, she plans to explain what Seoul has done t

March 17, 2014

[Editorial] Free bus service

As the June local elections draw near, candidates from the ruling and opposition parties have begun to put forward campaign pledges which are highly questionable in terms of feasibility.Chung Mong-joon, a ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker who announced his candidacy for Seoul mayor, promised to restart the development project for the Yongsan Station area in central Seoul. The 31-trillion-won project fell through a year ago when its developer went bankrupt. The mega-development project, the largest o

March 16, 2014

[Editorial] Regulatory reform

President Park Geun-hye is to preside over a ministerial meeting on regulatory reform March 20. The meetings have thus far been chaired by the prime minister. Yet she decided to host them herself from this point on to demonstrate her resolve to drastically reform the regulatory environment. Two months ago, Park declared a war on regulations. In her New Year news conference, she sketched out a three-year economic innovation plan, highlighting deregulation as a key strategy.Since then, the need fo

March 16, 2014

[Editorial] Extramarital births

It may be natural that the continuing rise in the number of babies born out of wedlock in Korea has drawn attention from many demographers who are concerned about the country’s low birthrate.According to figures recently compiled by a lawmaker, the number of out-of-wedlock births climbed from 5,184 in 2002 to 8,363 in 2008 and further to 10,114 in 2012. As noted by experts, the increase over the decade might reflect Koreans’ changing perception of marriage and extramarital births, while the prev

March 14, 2014

[Editorial] Opportunities in China

Over the past weeks, global attention has been drawn to a string of economic figures and policy goals announced by China. As a country that relies on China for nearly 30 percent of its exports, Korea has also kept a close eye on developments in the world’s second-largest economy.The latest data on trade and industrial output have raised concerns about the slowdown in China’s economic growth. The country recorded an unexpected trade deficit of $23 billion in February, with exports falling by 18.1

March 14, 2014

[Editorial] Solid job growth

Statistics Korea has released another impressive jobs report. In February, the number of employed people totaled 24.82 million, up 835,000 from a year ago. The on-year job growth was the largest since March 2002 when 842,000 jobs were added. The gain was also much greater than those made in the preceding months: 705,000 in January, 560,000 in December, 588,000 in November and 476,000 in October. The upbeat employment data could be seen as suggesting that the economic recovery has strengthened to

March 13, 2014

[Editorial] Hotbeds of malfeasance

Are domestic banks’ branches in Tokyo hotbeds of misconduct? Financial regulators who have been investigating the Tokyo branches of Woori Bank and the Industrial Bank of Korea have reportedly detected evidence of malfeasance committed by branch staff. Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service probed the Tokyo branches of the two banks following the massive illegal lending scandal at Kookmin Bank’s branch in the Japanese capital. Last year, it was disclosed that two managers of Kookmin’s Tokyo branch

March 13, 2014

[Editorial] Fostering service sector

Korea now boasts top-notch manufacturers such as Samsung and Hyundai Motor, rolling out smartphones, televisions and cars that impress global consumers. But Korea’s performance in service industries is dismal. The proportion of the service sector to the nation’s GDP fell to 57.3 percent last year, from 60.3 percent in 2008. It compares with 78.6 percent in the U.S., 72.7 percent in Japan and 79.2 percent in France. Value added by the service sector has been falling remarkably, to 55.3 percent of

March 12, 2014