Currently, the Korean government is devoting the utmost to reform regulations. On March 20th, ‘Terminative Discussion about Regulatory Reform’, where 160 people participated, such as secretaries of each ministry and businessmen, was broadcast on TV. In the discussion, President Park showed her strong will about reformation by saying, “Useless regulations are enemies that we have to break or cancers that kill our body if they are not removed.”
  At present, the government regards that there are too many useless regulations in Korea. Therefore, the government is planning to eliminate excessive regulations and develop Korea by maximizing the efficiency of its economy.
  Lately, the government has been running the website, Sinmungo, where citizens can freely express their opinions about regulatory reform and which regulations they want to be reformed. By accepting the opinions, the government is planning to reform regulations which need changes. The government announced that they will first reform 41 cases of regulations among 52 cases, which businessmen proposed in a discussion, before the end of this year. The representative regulations are about youth internship programs, food trucks and tourist hotels near schools.
  The government is planning to allow youth internship programs for businesses where the number of employees is 5 or below. Youth internship programs, which are designed to induce the unemployed youth to get jobs through the experience of being interns in small businesses, were only possible in businesses that have more than 5 employees. There are lots of small businesses with less than 5 employees in venture and the IT industry. Thus, the government is going to remove the regulation about youth internships because young people can learn how to work in these small businesses and be full time workers. Concerning this, Im Jong-mi(School of Computer Engineering, ’13), whose dream is to enter an IT company, said, “Now, many small IT companies will select more interns, so there might be more opportunities to learn professional work.”
  Not all regulatory reforms are positive like this. Food trucks, which were illegal, will be legalized. By legalizing food trucks, the government is planning to encourage youth founders and individual businessmen to start their businesses easily with a little money. However, there is a problem of fairness between food truck owners and store owners, who paid taxes and rent to run a business legally. To supplement this problem, the government announced that food trucks will be legal only inside amusement parks. A drawback might occur because of this. To sell inside the amusement park, sellers should pay an expensive street tax. However, for food truck businesses, which are possible to start with a little money, converting trucks to food trucks costs tens of millions of won. If sellers also have to pay an expensive street tax, a food truck cannot be a business that is easy to start, which was the government’s first aim. Kim Myung-jin, who is selling barbeque in a food truck at Sachang intersection, said, “In the amusement park, there are many people only on the weekends. Even though selling in the street is illegal, I can make more profits because many people walk by.”
  Moreover, the government is planning to allow hotels near schools by discontinuing regulations of the School Health Act, which is a law that states it is illegal to build a hotel within 50m of a school. Reviving the tourist industry and creating occupations for youth are the reasons. The government is claiming that only hotels with no harmful facilities for youths will be allowed. However, students are distrustful. Seoul YMCA Youth Club surveyed Pungmoon Girls’ High School and Ducksung Girls’ Middle & High Schools, which are all located in the area where hotels will be built, and 317 students among 387 were opposed to building the hotels. Most of the students opposed it because it will disrupt the studying environment.
  In addition, many regulations are being abolished in rapid speed right now. There are some reformations that are expected to bring positive effects or others that might bring negative effects. In regards to this, Kim Min-ji(Dept. of Wood and Paper Science, ’11) said, “It feels like the government is doing regulatory reform quickly because of the elections. I hope they reform carefully and keep reforming the useless regulations after the election.” Professor Ryoo Kee-cheol (CBNU, Dept. of Economics) said, “The government is expecting economic revival by eliminating diverse regulations, but it is not sure if it will bring economic stimulus. Rather, excessive reformation can bring harmful influences to citizens’ lives.” Also, to prevent regulatory reform from being negative, he said, “We must classify regulations well and decide if they are useful or not and abolish the useless regulations.”

By Seo Yeo-ryung
yr34@cbnu.ac.kr