[Editorial] Reinventing manufacturing

A decade ago, warnings about the erosion of South Korea’s manufacturing competitiveness were met with indifference or denial. Today, they land with the weight of hindsight. Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group and the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, offered a stark diagnosis last week: Without a wholesale reinvention driven by artificial intelligence, much of the country’s manufacturing base may disappear within 10 years. That prospect is no longer theoretical — it is already taking shape.

July 23, 2025

[Editorial] Corporate anxiety

Korean companies are concerned that the Lee Jae Myung administration and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea are stepping up legislation that could add to their burdens, following the revision of the Commercial Act. The revised Commercial Act proposed by the party passed the National Assembly on July 3. The revision expands the fiduciary duty of corporate board members to serve the interests not only of their companies but of shareholders as well. Business circles worry that the change could ma

July 22, 2025

[Editorial] Predictable but not prevented

Once considered rare, catastrophic summer downpours are now a seasonal certainty in South Korea. Over the last week, torrential rain swept through southern regions, submerging roads, toppling infrastructure and claiming at least 14 lives. In Sancheong, South Gyeongsang Province, alone, six people died and seven were left missing in landslides and flash floods, the government said Sunday. The rain has not yet ceased, and the toll may still rise. Yet this is no longer a one-off disaster. In recent

July 21, 2025

[Editorial] Mixed messages

The notion of a country’s main enemy — or “jujeok” in Korean — is not just symbolic rhetoric. It is the fulcrum around which national defense policy, military readiness and diplomatic posture revolve. Yet the Lee Jae Myung administration’s incoming ministers are offering strikingly divergent views on North Korea’s status. In a region where miscalculation can lead to catastrophe, the lack of clarity is not a luxury South Korea can afford. During confirmation hearings this week, Unification Minist

July 18, 2025

[Editorial] Knotty trade issue

Further opening of the Korean agricultural and livestock markets has emerged as a major issue in Korea's tariff and trade negotiations with the US. Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo said that trade negotiations on the agricultural sector always come with pain, but that there are some parts in which the country can make strategic decisions for a broader trade deal. He made the remark Monday during a meeting held with reporters to brief them on the progress of tariff negotiations he had during his visit

July 17, 2025

[Editorial] Restoring medical education

After nearly 17 months of disruption, South Korea’s medical students have announced a return to school. The Korean Medical Students’ Association, in coordination with the Korean Medical Association and parliamentary committees, declared on July 12 that students would resume classes “in trust of the government and the National Assembly.” This is a welcome turn in a prolonged standoff that has caused lasting damage to both medical education and public health. However, normalization must not come a

July 16, 2025

[Editorial] Focus on tariffs

President Lee Jae Myung presided over a general meeting of the National Security Council on July 10, three weeks before the US is scheduled to impose tariffs. People expected the meeting to deal mostly with the issue of negotiations with the US over its tariffs. But officials related to trade were absent from the meeting. During the meeting, Lee called for efforts to mend inter-Korean ties. He was also reportedly briefed by the Ministry of National Defense on security issues, including an early

July 15, 2025

[Editorial] Consensus under strain

After nearly two decades of deadlock, South Korea’s Minimum Wage Commission last week reached an agreement to raise the hourly minimum wage by 2.9 percent for 2026. The increase, from 10,030 won to 10,320 won ($7.51), marks the first such accord among labor, business and public interest representatives since 2008. The importance of this agreement lies less in the numerical increase than in the process by which it was reached. For the first time in 17 years, the commission finalized its proposal

July 14, 2025

[Editorial] Korea’s industrial drift

Giants don’t stumble quietly. The latest earnings from Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, two pillars of South Korean manufacturing, signal not just a downturn but deeper structural cracks. Their second-quarter profits more than halved, falling far short of even the most conservative forecasts. While escalating US tariffs, rising logistics costs and fierce competition from China are the immediate culprits, the roots of this crisis stretch further, exposing an industrial model increasingly i

July 11, 2025

[Editorial] Golden hour

The United States will start imposing 25 percent tariffs on all South Korean products on Aug. 1, US President Donald Trump said in a letter addressed to President Lee Jae Myung on Monday. Trump sent tariff letters to 14 countries, first releasing the letters to South Korea and Japan on his Truth Social platform. He seems to have disclosed tariff letters to the two countries first because of their large trade surpluses with the US — $66 billion for South Korea and $69.4 billion for Japan. Trump a

July 10, 2025

[Editorial] Korea’s academic exodus

At Seoul National University, long regarded as the pinnacle of South Korea’s higher education system, an unsettling pattern has emerged. Over the past four years, 56 professors have left for academic posts overseas, a quiet but steady migration to institutions offering not only higher salaries but also more generous research funding and fewer bureaucratic hurdles. The symbolism is hard to miss: Even South Korea’s most prestigious university struggles to retain talent in an era when intellectual

July 9, 2025

[Editorial] Saving self-employed

The number of business owners that wound up their operations topped 1 million for the first time in history last year. Retail and restaurant businesses accounted for nearly half of the closures. This means that many business owners are still struggling with debt due to high interest rates, high inflation and stagnant sales. In South Korea, early retirees in their 40s and 50s tend to take out loans to start a business for a living only to close it as they could not withstand the economic slowdown

July 8, 2025

[Editorial] Power without restraint

Late Friday night, as the nation’s attention was focused elsewhere, South Korea’s ruling Democratic Party of Korea passed a supplementary budget worth 31.8 trillion won ($23.3 billion). The party acted alone. No opposition lawmakers took part. There was no compromise, no negotiation. This was no routine fiscal exercise. It was the first major budget under President Lee Jae Myung’s administration, pushed through just a month after his inauguration. Yet the process followed a now familiar pattern

July 7, 2025

[Editorial] Sandbox, not straitjacket

South Korea has long prided itself on its technological sophistication, a nation of 5G networks, semiconductor giants and integrated mobile ecosystems. Yet the legal and regulatory machinery governing its economy remains ill-suited to the demands of the industries it claims to champion. A modest but telling countermeasure has been the “regulatory sandbox,” a policy tool that grants temporary exemptions from outdated laws, allowing innovative companies to test new services or products without bei

July 4, 2025

[Editorial] Diversify markets

South Korea's exports rose from a year earlier in June, rebounding from an on-year drop the previous month. Exports to the US and China decreased largely affected by their trade conflicts, while exports to Europe increased markedly. Exports came to $59.8 billion last month, up 4.3 percent from the same month last year, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy data showed Tuesday. Outbound shipments were the highest for any June. Semiconductors and cars, the country's top two export items, led the

July 3, 2025