Daring Investment, Intensive Technology Development

POSCO Founder Park calls on biz leaders to overcome crisis and put Korea on advanced country list

Honorary chairman Park Tae-joon of POSCO, in his keynote speech at the first International Conference on Entrepreneurial Spirit held at the Sheraton Walker-Hill in Seoul on Nov. 3, called for rearmament with the true entrepreneurial spirit that made Korea what it is today in terms of economic development to overcome the current economic slump and prepare for the future.
The conference, with the theme of "Entrepreneurial Spirit as a New Growth Engine," had the five economic organizations including the Korea International Trade Association as sponsors with the support of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
The former POSCO chairman, in the speech read by POSCO President Yoon Sok-man at the meeting, said the Korean entrepreneurial spirit that created the Han River Miracle is nothing short of the entrepreneurial spirit that built the Silicon Valley in the United States and the "monotsukuri," or entrepreneurial spirit, that made Japan great today.
In the speech entitled "Advice from a Senior Business Leader," he said the entrepreneurial spirit should be focused on smokestack industries to overcome the current financial crisis and to make the real economy continue to grow.
The POSCO honorary chairman said if the business founder generation had not worked the way they did through uncharted business areas as they did, Korea would not have had its economic miracle. The business leaders of today should fall back on the traditional entrepreneurial spirit and make daring investments and intensive technology developments to shape their future and to cross the threshold of advanced nations to become one of them.
On true entrepreneurial spirit, he said they should respect cooperation with others, but reject reliance on others and explore their own ways. They should have a value that states, "Everything under the sky is public."
He recalled that when the late President Park told him to take charge of building an integrated steel mill in 1967, he truly did not have a penny with which to start the huge project. POSCO did not have anything when it was launched in 1968 in terms of technology, resources and experience. Only two of the executives including him saw the blast furnace. The plan called for building the first stage of the steel plant with a capacity to produce 1.03 tons of steel in 1970. Korea's total exports in 1970 amounted to only $100 million, so there was no way to raise the $100 million needed to build the first phase of the blast furnace steel mill.
Park recalled that he was undeterred at the time and agreed with the president's determination that they should never transfer 5,000 years of poverty to the next generation and they should put an end to the depressive situation in their generation. Every officer and staff member involved in the launch of the steelmaker agreed with him on the great mission and burned with the passion to complete the project, he said.
No country in the world wanted to provide the funds. As the situation grew desperate, the idea that they could use part of the Japanese Colonial Compensation Fund began to float as if it was a "hole for escape when the sky fell down," as a Korean saying goes. But he said the fund was blood money that Japanese colonial authorities sucked off of Koreans under the colonial policies. He said, therefore, that he should kill himself if the steel mill project fails; or do his utmost to complete it successfully at any cost. Under these extremely hard circumstances, born were such ideas as the creative and challenging spirit, which is why the slogan "Resources are limited and creativity is boundless" is hung at the front gate of the POSCO steel mill in Pohang. Park said it will be there as long as POSCO is in operation.
Park said the sense that the 'business is my own' helps the business operations, but the fruits acquired from the business should be thought as belonging to the public. They should invest more and uphold public business interests, he stressed.
As shown by the financial crisis in the United States, capitalism has yet to show its perfect form for mankind, he said, adding, however, that many examples to be used to perfect the ideology have been made. The creative capitalism asserted by Bill Gates and the "New Bretton Woods" system called for by French President Nicolas Sarkozy are just two of them. There are many areas that need to be studied in detail globally and nationally, but mankind may be able to find the true solution from the thought that "everything under the sky is public." nw

Honorary Chairman of POSCO Park Tae-joon.