Econ. transparency similar to Indonesia

A shameful report on Korea¡¯s economic transparency was released, saying that Korea¡¯s transparency falls behind Thailand and Czechoslovakia, and is similar to Indonesia¡¯s and Turkey¡¯s.

Recently PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a worldwide consulting company based in the United States, conducted the opacity appraisal in terms of economy, management, law and ethics over the 35 countries, and put it in the Internet page (www.pwcglobal.com) Jan. 25. According to the report ¡°World Economic Opacity Index,¡± Korea¡¯s opacity index stands at 73 on a scale that places the worst opacity as 150.

If ¡°clear, accurate, fair and just practices¡± are not observed in view of the legal protection for company, macroeconomic policy, disclosure system, corruption and government regulation, the opacity index rises, meaning that enterprises have to pay more expenses.

According to the PwC report, the opacity index of Japan and Taiwan stand at 60 and 61, in 16th place and 19th place respectively. The highest opacity index went to China at 87. Among countries having higher index than Korea were Russia (84), Indonesia (75), and Turkey (74).

Lee Jong-Jae jjlee@donga.com