[mukto-mona] South Korea’s new President targets global relationship

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This is an article about "South Korea's new President targets global relationship". I will be highly honoured if you publish this article. I apprecite your time to read this article.
 
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Ripan Kumar Biswas
New York, U.S.A

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South Korea's new President targets global relationship

 

Ripan Kumar Biswas

Ripan.Biswas@yahoo.com

 

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to attend the inauguration of South Korea's new President Lee Myung-bak on February 25, 2008 and discuss "regional security and bilateral relations including the six-party talks."

 

But the President-elect Lee, former Mayor of Seoul (2002-2006), was in some hot water until February 21 as he was dogged throughout his election campaign by allegations linking him to a financial scandal in 2001. The independent counsel cleared Lee Myung-bak of all allegations, thereby paving the way for the smooth launch of his presidency on Monday. The special inquiry, which kicked off on January 15 and had a 40-day mandate, was initiated by Lee's political rivals who denounced the conclusions of the state prosecutors' investigation last year as "politically biased."

 

Lee Myung-bak, who grew up in the South Korean southern city of Pohang, is known as a "man of myth" due to his rise from poverty to become the top executive and president of Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co.(resigned in 1992), which is at center of South Korea's economic transformation.

 

Although Lee's life was also filled with blurs and scars and had to peddled food on the streets by selling wheat flour cakes, cloth, fruit, matches and ice cream in his early life, Lee and his conservative Grand National Party (GNP) won a landslide victory on December 19, 2007, gathering 48.6 percent of the vote, almost 20 percent more than his closest rival, Chung Dong-young from for the pro-government United New Democratic party (UNDP), which won just 26.2 percent. Lee Myung-bak is going to take over from his 9^th predecessor Roh Moo-hyun as the 17^th President of the Republic of Korea.

 

The outgoing administration has not been particularly business-friendly, as many foreign investors have found to their cost, but Lee, who earned the nickname "The Bulldozer" at Hyundai, has vowed to put a priority on reinvigorating the economy, promising 7% economic growth by stimulating domestic and foreign investment.

 

Lee has pledged 12.6 trillion won in tax cuts, lowering the maximum corporate tax rate by stages to 20% from the current 25% and lowering oil-related taxes by 10%, paying for it by reducing government expenditures by as much as 20 trillion won. He also promises reductions in real-estate taxes. Lee says he will ease rules that restrict industrial groups from controlling banks. The current law bans industrial firms from owning more than 5% of a bank. He will also privatize major swathes of state-owned economic sectors.

 

Lee, who collected trash to finance his college education, mainly campaigned on economic issues such as skyrocketing property prices and rising unemployment under outgoing President Roh Moo-hyun. In addition, his campaigned slogan was, "747," the numbers standing for his pledge to adopt policies that he says will raise the annual increase in the gross national product from 4 percent to 7 percent, the annual per capita income from nearly $20,000 to $40,000 a year, and the size of the Korean economy from the world's 11th or 12th to seventh largest.

 

Despite the Asian crisis of 1997, Seoul has seen a relatively steady increase in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) since the early 1990s, largely due to diligent government efforts to streamline foreign investment procedures, open up the market and promote inward investment. Although the planned FDI into South Korea fell for the third consecutive year in 2007, the commerce ministry forecast steady FDI inflows of around $10bn (€6.8bn, £5.1bn) for 2008.

 

Besides revitalizing in South Korean's economy, the 65-year-old Lee also has promised to adopt a more critical view of the government's policy of reconciliation with North Korea. Earlier, he has told voters that he will demand reciprocity from North Korea before the government follows through on pledges to provide vast amounts of aid, but he urged North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program first. He wants to review his predecessors' "Sunshine Policy" of diplomatic and economic engagement with the rest of the world.

 

No doubt that the most important diplomatic task of the Lee Myung-bak administration will be how to bolster mutual trust and alliance between South Korea and the United States. "Until now, South Korean-U.S. relations were somewhat neglected for the sake of inter-Korean relations," Lee said, faulting Roh during a televised news conference on the work of his transition team on January 14, 2008. "My theory is that if South Korean-U.S. relations get stronger, it will actually help improve inter-Korean relations. And it can actually help improve North Korean-U.S. relations," he added.

 

The Lee administration is also expected to significantly improve Seoul-Tokyo relations through stepped-up cooperation with Japan's new government headed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. Other ambiguous part in the incoming administration's foreign policy concerns South Korea's relations with China.

 

To talk about the diplomatic and economic relation between Bangladesh and South Korea, it is reported to be the single largest foreign investor country in Bangladesh in terms of number of investments in 2007. South Korea alone operates 57 industries with 100 per cent ownerships in 10 different Export Processing Zones (EPZs) across the country. On the other hand, the agreement signed between Bangladesh and South Korea on recruitment of Bangladeshi workforce in the newly industrialized country under the newly introduced South Korea's Employment Permit System (EPS) on June 5, 2007, was the symbol of strong bilateral relationship between the two countries since the birth of Bangladesh in 1971.

Apart from these, a strong memorandum of understanding had been signed between Bangladesh and South Korea on January 13, 2004 to provide institutional framework to promote cooperation between the two sides in logistics and defence industry-related areas.

Although Lee Myung-bak's foreign policy platform is characterized by three priorities: resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue, strengthening of the Korea-U.S. alliance, and conditional assistance to the North upon denuclearization, but he is adamant to expand Asia's diplomacy in partnership with other regional states to move toward the opening of an Asian era.

 

February 23, 2008, New York

Ripan Kumar Biswas is a freelance writer based in New York

 

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