Pro-biz group`s search for new chief

The Federation of Korean Industries is scrambling to find a new chairman. Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee, the most sought after candidate, has said since last year that he will not take the job and snubbed the chairman’s meeting Thursday for the fourth straight year. Since chairmen of other major conglomerates are also shunning the post, rumors suggest that the pro-business lobbying organization will seek someone from the outside. The chairmanship has effectively remained vacant for six months since Hyosung Group Chairman Cho Suck-rai resigned over poor health. If the federation fails to appoint a chairman at its general assembly next month, it could face accusations of uselessness or calls for dismantlement.

Having served as the the business community’s headquarters since its establishment in 1961, the federation has had difficulty finding a chairman after former Daewoo Group Chairman Kim Woo-choong resigned in 1999. As federation chairman, Kim frequently accompanied the president to events at home and abroad but failed to prevent Daewoo from being dismantled. As a representative of the business community, the federation chairman ideally should make critical comments on the government and politics to protect the market economy and business interests. In reality, however, he or she stands to make little progress and only shoulders a significant burden. Conglomerate chairmen apparently feel no need to assume a position in which they must coordinate the competing interests of companies when they have enough headaches running their own business affairs.

The power vacuum is related to the lobbying organization’s loss of identity. In sense of identity, it lags behind the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Korea Employers’ Federation, which focuses on labor relations. The industries’ federation has lost most of its bridging role linking the government and business that it utilized in Korea’s industrialization era. If entangled in the illegal raising of political funds, the body is subject to prosecution. Only when it finds its proper roles can it revive its lost glory. Federation vice chairman Chung Byung-chul said, “The FKI is efficiently playing its role, and I cannot accept the claim that its stature has waned,” but his opinion is in stark contrast to that of the business community.

When the industries’ federation started to see its stature on shaky ground 10 years ago, the solution was transformation of the organization itself into an authoritative think tank rather than its subsidiary Korea Economic Research Institute. If that happens, the federation can present agenda on management of the economy and thus reinforce market economics, going beyond conducting studies of business and management. A think tank could prove useful if it raises the people’s understanding and decision-making process by logically countering the main opposition party’s absurd demand for free welfare. Compared to major economies worldwide, Korea has too few think tanks and the ones that it has lack influence. The Federation of Korean Industries apparently needs to find its proper role first before finding a new chairman.

Editorial Writer Hong Kwon-hee (konihong@donga.com)