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Economy and Leadership This Is No Time to Indulge in Blame Game | |||
For some time, the Roh Moo-hyun government has been driven into a corner politically and now has few friends left. The situation facing President Roh is even worse in economics, as the criticism is coming not just from within but without. Foreign media outlets are heaping ridicule on the Korean economy, comparing it to a prematurely aged person and ``marveling at its consistency'' to disappoint participants and watchers. All of them point to the government as the reason for the problems. Roh's aides are of course striking back, noting the above-average economic growth rate compared to OECD members. The few mistakes they acknowledge are the widening income gap between the 20-percent ``haves'' and the 80-percent ``have-nots,'' along with sharply increased housing prices. One can agree to the relative nature of economic growth - a 5-percent expansion is not bad for a country with per capita income of nearly $20,000. Officials should know, however, even these figures are relative. Korea has struggled to reach the $20,000-income mark, which it benchmarked as the definition of an advanced country, but the criteria has just risen to $30,000. It took a decade for 19 advanced countries to move from $20,000 to $30,000. For Korea, the real problem is how to shorten the period, while maintaining distance from its closely chasing competitors, including China and India. This means the nation direly needs to develop new growth engines that can feed the country over the next decade or two. It is for this reason the Roh administration's complacency about the 4-5 percent growth is mistaken. As the Hyundai Economic Research Institute said, the country can fall into the trap of a mid-level country by growing slightly more than 4 percent a year. So a good leader and his or her government need to expand the growth potential itself by finding new strategic industries and driving businesses and people to renovate and revitalize the economy. Even without the foreign media's criticism, the Roh administration has erred in deciding the economic direction and in selecting the economic team that operates it. His team was a group of amateurish ideologues with neither expertise nor experience in economic administration. The excessively ideological inclination of the president himself led to the mistake of putting the economy on the back burner. Now the voters want a new leader, if not an economic expert, who can – and would - focus on the economy. Come to think of it, however, businesses and people are not free from blame, either. Corporate Korea has long lost its entrepreneurial spirit, while cash-laden consumers were happy to spend _ not at home but abroad. It's high time the whole society _ government, business and people _ racked their brains to find ways to rejuvenate the economy. |