Office for Government Policy Coordination: "OECD Ranks Korea's Regulatory Impact Analysis System Among Top"

OECD Member Countries Regulatory Policy Evaluation Announcement
South Korea's Regulatory Impact Analysis Ranks 2nd Among 38 Member Countries

On February 2nd, at the Regulatory Sandbox 2nd Anniversary Performance Report held at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Jung-gu, Seoul, Jin-Hyo Kim, CEO of Dogu Space, introduced 'Patrover,' an outdoor autonomous patrol robot granted a sandbox demonstration exception. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] South Korea ranked among the top in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries' regulatory policy evaluation. It placed 2nd out of 38 member countries in the Regulatory Impact Analysis category.

According to the Office for Government Policy Coordination on the 14th, the OECD's "OECD Regulatory Policy Outlook 2021" report released that day evaluated South Korea's legal processing capability in Regulatory Impact Analysis as 2nd among 38 OECD member countries. This is one rank higher than the 3rd place in the previous evaluation in 2018 and 11 ranks higher than the 13th place in the first evaluation in 2015. The capability to process subordinate legislation was also ranked 2nd, which is two ranks higher than the 4th place in 2018. For stakeholder participation in legislation, it rose to 3rd place (4th in 2018), and for subordinate legislation, it rose to 4th place (6th). In the ex-post evaluation category, it dropped two ranks to 5th place (from 3rd) for laws and four ranks to 7th place (from 3rd) for subordinate legislation. Overall, it recorded rankings between 2nd and 7th, maintaining a performance similar to the 3rd to 6th places three years ago.

According to the Office for Government Policy Coordination, South Korea's improvement policies such as ▲expanding online participation ▲regulatory impact assessment for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to ease regulatory burdens on SMEs ▲introduction of regulatory sandbox received high evaluations from the OECD. The government's representative deregulation policy, the sandbox, has approved a total of 547 cases since its introduction in January 2019 until last month, resulting in an investment attraction of 3.8 trillion KRW, sales increase of 114.5 billion KRW, and employment creation of 5,084 people. Currently, under the collaboration of the Office for Government Policy Coordination and five ministries, six sectors including information and communication technology (ICT) convergence are being operated. The quarantine system, including the so-called "K-quarantine" coined term, "Drive-Thru," and the "3T strategy" (Test, Trace, Treatment), also received favorable evaluations.

Looking at the categories, in Regulatory Impact Analysis where it ranked 2nd, cost-benefit analysis and SME impact assessment systems received high evaluations. The OECD views that evaluating the impacts and outcomes of various policy alternatives can enhance policy consistency and prevent regulatory failures. South Korea received high marks in this regard. In particular, it was evaluated that the quality of regulation was improved by strengthening the impact analysis on SMEs through the Regulatory Impact Analysis guidelines. The current process for drafting all laws and subordinate legislation, which includes ▲analyzing two or more alternatives including non-regulatory measures and ▲conducting regulatory reviews according to importance, was also praised.

In the stakeholder participation section, South Korea was evaluated to provide relatively transparent regulatory drafting information through channels such as the Regulatory Reform Petition and to ensure active participation, thereby increasing regulatory compliance rates. It was also evaluated for strengthening stakeholder participation through ▲expanding online participation via the government legislation integrated notice system for all laws and subordinate legislation and ▲establishing a system to hear opinions from academia and industry during the regulatory review process.

The ex-post evaluation category, where the ranking somewhat dropped, showed that only about 25% of OECD member countries have systematic systems, indicating many countries are lacking. Nevertheless, South Korea received high marks for including ex-post evaluation plans in Regulatory Impact Analysis and conducting ex-post evaluations through the "sunset clause" with a five-year term.

An official from the Office for Government Policy Coordination said, "In this OECD regulatory policy evaluation, South Korea was assessed as superior compared to the OECD average," and added, "Going forward, the government will actively promote institutional improvements such as the sandbox responding to the 4th Industrial Revolution based on the OECD evaluation results and will continuously strive to create regulatory innovation outcomes that the public and businesses can feel."

The OECD regulatory policy evaluation has been conducted every three years since 2015. It mainly focuses on the government legislative regulatory drafting process and evaluates the regulatory policies of member countries. As of the end of last year, governments of each country responded to over 1,000 questionnaire items and submitted supporting documents, which the OECD verified.

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