韓国の財閥改革

その政策と課題

抄録

The Korean economy, as well as the economies of several other East Asian countries, faced a currency crisis in 1997. The Korean government requested to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for financial assistance and agreed to $55 billion dollars in relief finance, accepting with it the tight conditions of economic readjustment at the end of the same year.
The new Korean government carried out four Economic Structural Reform Policies, namely Financial, Corporate, Public and Labor sectors were targeted for the renewal and economic development since 1998. The main goal of these policies was to introduce the market oriented economic order or to establish the overall market principles. Among these reform policies, the corporate reform was actually a means of reorganizing the giant combines of Korea, although the government did not come out and say this.
Korean giant combines had been formed through a quite different way when compared to the process found in other advanced countries. There are three basic characteristics. First, they formed under government leadership and support. Second, the founders of such groups had strong motivation for achievement of their goals. Third, the formative period was very short, in some cases 20 years. Within this timeframe they accumulated huge capital and economic power.
The Korean people generally recognize that the giant combines have had a great role in economic development. At the same time, however, there are many criticism too, namely that they overly concentrated economic power, tended to disturb the market and were a moral hazard in the viewpoint of social justice.
Therefore the government took measures of reform the giant combines. These reforms were named “The Five Plus Three Principles”. The five basic subjects were the promotion of the clearness of management, the dissolution of the mutual guarantee of finance, improvement of the financial structure, selection of main business, and enforcement of the responsibility of big stockholders and executive officers. Three complimentary programs were the restriction of the control power to a non-bank financial institution, restraint of the circulative investment among the group, and prohibition of illegal succession of property.
The above mentioned reform policies provoked some controversy. The main criticism was that the basic objective should not be on regulation but on efficiency, because these policies seemed to place too much weight on the regulatory side.