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The Center for Free Enterprise has recommended that the incoming administration slash more than half of Korea's 298 public corporations over the next five years.
In a report released on Monday, the CFE strongly urged for the privatization of the majority of the nation's public corporations. "Under the Roh Moo-hyun administration the government sector has grown larger under the pretext of creating jobs. But the privatization of public corporations, which will surely reinvigorate the private economic sector, was never pushed properly," the report said.
"The privatization should seek a wide range of targets, such as central government agencies, public corporations and government-funded enterprises. The privatization should also target Korea Post, a kind of government agency that plays a role as a public corporation," the report continued.
The CFE said the government should consider merging or privatizing the Korea Gas Corp., the Korea Minting & Security Printing Corp., the Korea Racing Authority, the Korea District Heating Corp., the Korea National Housing Corp., and the Korea Railroad Corp., as well as semi-government agencies such as the National Pension Service, the Korea Teachers Pension, and the Government Employees Pension Service.
The CFE also singled out media companies for privatization, such as the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), the Munhwa Broadcasting Corp. (MBC), the Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), YTN, and the Seoul Shinmun. "MBC, in particular, can be considered a large-scale public media group," the CFE report said.
The CFE suggested the government sell stocks of the Korea Development Bank, the Industrial Bank of Korea, and the Export-Import Bank of Korea on the stock market. It also suggested privatizing 44 national universities from a business perspective, including Seoul National University.
The CFE called for the government to quickly sell its stakes in Woori Finance Holdings, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Daewoo International Corp. "It's irrational to argue that the market will suffer if large corporations are sold at the same time and that it needs more time to sell them at reasonable prices," the report said.
The CFE said both ownership and management should be privatized. "The privatization of management alone should be limited to a small number of public corporations in railway and electricity," it said.
Choi Seung-no, an official with the CFE, said, "Trying to maintain public corporations under a vague pretext of keeping their public orientation is tantamount to protecting interest groups that want to defend their own vested interests. Privatization should be carried out on a permanent basis under a 10-year plan."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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