1,000 Out of 7,900 Regulations to be Loosened Within This Year

Out of 7,900 regulations held by various parts of the government, 1,000 will be checked this year. Furthermore, 35 “group regulations” that relate many parts and have big regulation improvement effects will also be improved systematically.

The government held a cabinet council with prime minister Lee Hae-chan as the chief at the Central Government Complex, Seoul yesterday to finalize a 2005 regulation improvement plan for activating the economy and improving business investment conditions.

The government especially plans to check regulations with big economic effects during the first half of the year so that the results can be shown in the second half. Moreover, to encourage each department’s regulation improvement, it is introducing a department evaluation system, and to suppress regulation making and enforcing, it will operate a total regulation system that can be run freely by each department.

Following this, not only banks and insurance firms but also stocks firm will be allowed to run a trust firm. Agriculture firms and agricultural land purchasing regulations, where half of the capital must be owned by farmers and the representative must be a farmer, will be abolished.

With this, “group regulations” such as house construction, airline delivery, culture and art (first quarter), electronic trade, development of new products, medical service, financial information usage (second quarter), tourism and leisure industry, communication and broadcasting, the silver industry (third quarter), entering of the finance industry, operating a communications business, e-government, and a dutiful employment system (fourth quarter) will be checked orderly.

The government also made clear that it would complete clean-up regulations on any administrative disadvantages until this June, asserting “public institutions like public corporation and various committees gave some burdens to the people while performing administrative service.” There were some cases that those institutions had participated restriction of members’ enrolment and withdrawal, excessive and forceful collection of membership fees and burdensome regulation such as collusive bidding and limited transaction process.

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com