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Korea Business Success eZine – Winter
2007
Welcome to the Winter 2007 issue of the Korea Business Success
eZine of Korean Consulting & Translation, Inc. We hope you find
this information helpful to your business in Korea and with Koreans
everywhere.
Table of Contents
- Korean to Head UN
- What is an American-Korean?
- Feature Article: Korea Announces Plan
to Reverse Appreciation of Won
- Housing Affordability in Korea
- Korean-American Day Declared in the US
- Seoul Taxis Go Hi-Tech
- CIA Bows to Pressure from Korean Civic Groups
1. Korean to Head UN
On January 1, 2007, the position of
Secretary General of the UN passed from Kofi Annan of Ghana to Ban
Ki-Moon of South Korea. The new Secretary General's given name is "Ki-Moon" and
his surname is "Ban". His surname is
pronounced "bahn" as in the German word "autobahn",
not as in the English word "ban". "Ki" is also
more of a "gee" sound
than "kee".
Ban seems well-qualified for the job. He has worked in the South Korean
Foreign Ministry since 1970 and was posted to several countries, including
the US. He also worked for the UN division of the South Korean Foreign
Ministry and has held various positions as advisor to the South Korean
President on foreign affairs and national security. Notably, he served
as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty Organization in 1999, as the South Korean Ambassador
to Austria from 1998 to 2000 and as Korean Foreign Minister from 2004
to 2006.
Ban has expressed a desire to initiate reform at the UN and his candidacy
was supported by the US, which has often articulated the need for reform
there. The appointment of Ban to the top job at the UN is a source
of national pride for South Koreans.
2. What is an American-Korean?
A Korean-American is a person of Korean
heritage with US citizenship or residency. What then is an American-Korean?
Logically, an American-Korean would be a person of American heritage
who is living in Korea and has gained Korean citizenship, but Koreans
would use a term that translates as "naturalized person" or
simply continue to refer to them by their country of origin because
the number of Korean citizens of non-Korean heritage is very small.
There are a small number of foreigners who have gained Korean citizenship
by taking and passing the citizenship test but the majority of foreigners
obtaining Korean citizenship are Chinese, Vietnamese or Russian women
marrying Korean farmers.
Because South Korea does not recognize dual citizenship, any foreigners
taking Korean citizenship have to give up any other citizenship they
hold.
One of the most famous American-Koreans is a man named Robert Holley.
He first came to Korea as a Mormon missionary. He studied law in the
US and later worked as a legal advisor in Korea. He learned to speak
Korean when he trained as a missionary and from his time spent living
in Korea. He found fame in Korea as a result of many TV appearances
and, in particular, is renowned for his ability to speak the Gyeongnam
Province dialect.
Robert Holley currently lives in Korea with his Korean wife and heads
an international school that he founded. In addition, he promotes a
chain of English language colleges, is a regular on several radio programs
and occasionally makes TV appearances.
3. Feature Article - Korea Announces
Plan to Reverse Appreciation of the Korean Won
The continued appreciation
of the Korean currency, the won, is hurting the profits and competitiveness
of Korean exporters and has prompted the Ministry of Finance and Economy
to formulate a plan to bring about a depreciation of the won.
The success of Korean exports and large investments by foreigners in
Korea means that a lot of money is converted from foreign currencies
into won, but the purchases of imports by Koreans and overseas investments
by Koreans are not keeping pace. Simply put, the demand for Korean
won by foreigners has grown by more than the demand for foreign currencies
by Koreans, which has caused the won to appreciate.
To help balance supply and demand for the Korean won, the Korean government
announced plans on the 15th of January to encourage greater overseas
investment by Koreans. Measures include raising the cap on overseas
investment properties from $1 million to $3 million and waiving capital
gains tax on overseas equity fund investments by Koreans for 3 years.
The measures are conservatively expected to result in a capital outflow
of between $10 and $15 billion dollars. The end result may be a significant
depreciation in the value of the Korean won in the medium to long term.
4. Housing Affordability in Korea
The issue of housing affordability
is significant in the large cities of Korea, particularly Seoul. The
word housing here refers to apartments because a house in a city long
ago moved beyond the reach of everyone but multi-millionaires. It now
seems that even apartments are moving beyond the reach of the average
person.
The average apartment price nationwide jumped by 11.6 percent last
year, while apartment prices in Seoul rose 18.4 percent, and in many
places it rose by much more.
The rising housing prices are considered to be a bubble market brought
about by property speculation. The government has taken measures to
stabilize prices which have not proved effective and it is set to take
even more extreme measures soon.
In May of last year, the government designated Kangnam, Seocho, Songpa,
Mokdong, Bundang, Pyongchon and Yongin as property speculative zones
(colloquially referred to as the "Bubble Seven") that are
subject to stricter lending policies and heavier regulations.
The government previously introduced a debt-to-income ratio requirement
for housing loans for the purchase of properties valued at 600 million
won ($645,000) or more in the property speculative zones whereby the
annual principal and interest repayments on the loan cannot exceed
40 percent of the annual income of the borrower. Starting next month,
the debt-to-income ratio will be applied to all housing loans across
the country.
It is not clear whether the extension of the debt-to-income housing
loan requirement will be effective. If housing prices don't drop, then
it will only make home ownership impossible for young and low-income
people as they are prevented from obtaining housing loans.
5. Korean-American
Day Declared in the US
In 2005, the US Senate officially designated
January 13th as Korean-American day. The date commemorates the arrival
of the first official Korean immigrant to Hawaii in 1903. Interestingly,
Koreans are the only immigrant group to have an official day celebrating
their immigration to the US.
Major celebrations were held in LA and New York and were attended by
many Korean-Americans and Koreans in the US.
On a related note, the Korean Interchange and Cooperation Association
launched a petition on Korean-American day this year to convince the
South Korean government to officially recognize that date as Overseas
Korean Day in recognition of the achievements of Koreans living outside
Korea.
6. Seoul Taxis Go Hi-Tech
The transportation system in Korea is outstanding
and is set to get even better.
The number of "call taxis" in Seoul will nearly double by
2010 and passengers will be able to pay fares with credit cards and
transport smart cards from next month.
A GPS receiver will be installed in call taxis to enable the taxi's
position to be relayed to base so that the nearest vacant taxi can
be sent to the caller's location.
It is unlikely that the taxi call centers will be manned by bilingual
Koreans which means that the service will not be as easily utilized
by foreigners, but it is a good example of what a hi-tech society South
Korea has become.
7. CIA Bows to Pressure from Korean Civic Groups
Organizations of
concerned citizens, referred to as "civic
groups" in
the English-language Korean press are a major force in Korea. They
address a wide range of issues, including the environment, politics,
labor relations, culture, the law, war crimes, human rights and animal
rights. It seems that, in Korea, for every conceivable issue, there
are one or more civic groups.
Korean civic groups have apparently convinced the CIA to amend its
fact book published on the Internet, which is a demonstration of their
power. The source of civic groups' power is numbers, persistence, organizational
ability and the passion of Koreans.
The main offending passage used to read: "Korea was an independent kingdom
for much of the past millennium." To the members of the civic groups who
participated in the campaign to have the CIA "correct" its fact book,
this did not accurately reflect the fact that Korea has been continuously inhabited
for at least 4,000 years. The passage has now been changed to "Korea was
an independent kingdom for much of its millennia-long history." However,
the civic groups are not yet satisfied and believe that it still contains
errors and have vowed to continue their campaign.
Another major force in Korea is the so-called netizens. The word netizen
means a citizen of the Internet. Many individual netizens from time
to time spontaneously come together in response to something that has
happened or at the urging of others and mount an Internet campaign
against a certain individual or organization that has, in their minds,
done some wrong.
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