"Rather Than Removing Regulations, They Should Be Streamlined"…Jeong Museop, Member of the SME Regulation Impact Assessment Committee

Carefully Review Newly Established and Strengthened Regulations
Request Revisions if Disadvantageous to Small and Medium Enterprises

Jeong Museop, Member of the SME Regulatory Impact Assessment Self-Inspection Committee

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daeseop] "Innovation is needed in the regulation of companies in our country. Rather than eliminating regulations themselves, they should be streamlined."

Jeong Museop, a member (47) of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Regulatory Impact Assessment Self-Inspection Committee, said this while stating, "Since the purpose of regulation is important, it is implemented by government ministries, but we need to find ways to achieve that purpose while also reducing costs."

Even in the situation where companies are struggling with management due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), regulations from government ministries continue to emerge. Jeong emphasized regulatory efficiency, saying, "If the burden is the cost and the purpose is the outcome, the output relative to the input should be good. Alternatively, there is a way to increase performance while keeping the given cost the same."

He also stressed, "No matter how good the purpose is, if the cost to achieve it is, for example, 10 or 20 times the purpose, then it is wrong."

The SME Regulatory Impact Assessment Self-Inspection Committee was launched on the 1st through the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. The committee reviews whether to provide opinions on newly established or strengthened regulations from government ministries related to SMEs, and if there are disadvantages to SMEs, it requests modifications. Its main tasks include preventing the establishment of new regulations by government ministries, resolving excessive regulations compared to competing companies in advanced countries, and proposing alternatives to regulations that are impossible with existing technology.

Jeong is an expert with extensive experience in matters related to corporate and government ministry regulations. He graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in Business Administration and completed his master's and doctoral degrees in Economics at the same university's graduate school. While working as a senior researcher at Samsung Economic Research Institute, he was in charge of corporate strategy and government policy, then moved to academia. He is currently a professor in the Department of International Trade at Dong-A University and also serves as an advisory member of the Presidential Committee on Jobs.

Including Jeong, seven private experts were appointed to this committee. Jeong emphasized, "From the perspective of SMEs, our committee can act as a spokesperson. We evaluate and provide opinions on various regulations that immediately impose costs and business burdens, filtering out those unfavorable to SMEs."

According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, through the existing SME Regulatory Impact Assessment system, 584 laws and 1,161 regulations related to SMEs were reviewed last year, and 34 modification opinions were submitted to the Office for Government Policy Coordination and relevant ministries. Of these, 21 were reflected, resulting in a reduction of annual regulatory costs by 254.4 billion KRW for 60,191 SMEs.

Jeong said, "The SME Regulatory Impact Assessment is a very necessary system for SMEs. With the official launch of the Self-Inspection Committee this time, a system has been established to receive more systematic collaboration from experts. Also, it will be possible to increase the reliability of the regulatory impact assessment review results more objectively."

Jeong also emphasized the importance of online infrastructure, which has become prominent due to the spread of COVID-19. He said, "For example, regarding regulations related to offline education or submission documents, if we explore various ways to utilize online infrastructure, costs can be significantly reduced."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.