2015, Vol.24, No.

Journal of Regulation Studies 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.78

pISSN : 1738-7132
https://journal.kci.go.kr/ksrs2002

Regulatory reform is an important nation-wide tasks that have been promoted by every government in Korea. Park Geun-Hye government is pursuing an aggressive regulatory reform since the second year in power. Government tries to establish more effective regulatory reform tools such as ‘Cost-in, Cost-out’, Red tape Report, negative-style regulation design, etc. in Amendments of Regulatory Reform Act. Regulatory Reform System has not been functioned as expected due to a lack of professional man power and other resources which are essential materials for proper regulatory reform. There are also loopholes that have been excluded from the reform for a long time such as Assembly-introduced Bills, regulations on metropolitan area, services industry regulations. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon like misunderstanding of regulatory reform, existing unreasonable regulations and a conflict of interest on regulation reform. At this situation, the most immediate tasks are stable settlement of new-introduced advanced regulatory reform tools through Amendments of Regulatory Reform Act which can provide each government department an incentive to pursue a regulatory reform initiative. Government should review the real effects of so-called economic-democratization at the origin in cold manners.

Regulation reform is one of the most important policy agenda of the Park Geun-hye administration. President Park gives a strong emphasis on the implementation of regulatory reform by hosting Minister’s Meeting on Regulatory Reform. In fact, some regulations to be eliminated are discovered and enforced to be abolished during the consecutive meetings. Local governments regulations are not an exception. Local regulations reform is undergoing by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs under the title of “Let the local government can reform regulations competitively.” It gives emphasis on the problem solving such as i)finding and abolishing local ordinances or local by-laws which are violating laws and ministerial decrees, ii)finding and abolishing local ordinances or local by-laws which are not based on the laws or ministerial decrees, iii)reform the attitudes and behavioral practices embedded in the regulatory bodies. Even though it shows some positive results, local governments regulations reform seems that it does not actualize the original principle of regulatory reform that orienting economic revival of local area. The “competition between local governments” undergoing by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs became a “goal oriented directive competition” which is far from ensuring and increasing economic competitiveness. In this sense, “competition between local governments” needs to be guided to a “voluntary regulation reform competition” in accordance with each local governments industrial conditions. Voluntary regulation reform can yield a ‘virtuous circle’ consist of intensive regulation reform on strategical industrial area, high rate of employment, growth of population in local area, and income increase. To achieve it, rehabilitation on local governments regulation reform system needs to be done relentlessly.

The current Korean government intends to create a competitive business environment, boost companies’ investments and start-ups, and provide incentives for service industries to create jobs, especially actively pushing forward promising regulatory reforms of service industries. A recent study examined the regulatory reforms implemented by the current administration and what have been the results of those actions through regulatory information portal and data published by the Office for Government Policy Coordination. After 2014, the regulation of the service industries decreased by 38(151 reforms, 113 laws) in volume. However, the current administration is pushing forward to boost investment, so regulatory reforms of tourism and other industries have not been fully adopted. In conclusion, the number of regulatory reforms increased, but the issue of evaluating its implementation and effectiveness still need to be resolved.