Dr. Sakong Il to Head KITA

Veteran economist to utilize his vast connections and experience to revive economy and create jobs

The Korea International Trade Association (KITA) has a new chairman in Dr. Sakong Il, who was picked by the board of directors on Feb. 24 to take over the position left vacant by former Chairman Lee Hee-beom, whose term of office expired. The new chairman, the 27th to head KITA, said trade financing should be invigorated as soon as possible and he will advise the government on international trade policies while doing what he has to do to run KITA. Sakong said Korea is far ahead of other countries in terms of the amount of trade financing, but it is critical that the funds reach trading firms that truly need financing. He said he will pay particular attention to the issue, as the government has already been doing.
The new chairman said he is not one who does a job half-heartedly and is ready to use any of means he has on hand, including connections both private and public, both at home and abroad, if they can be of help to KITA. Just to show his background as a renowned economist, he outlined his plans to run KITA in both macro and micro terms. The first objective of his major plans is to listen to the voices of those who work on the actual international trade fronts and advise what the government should do to solve their problems. He stressed that his experience as chairman of the National Competitiveness Strengthening Committee will come in handy as he spent a lot of hours trying to come up with ways to help SMEs in provincial areas to get their problems ironed out, including international trade issues.
The macro side of the plan is to help Korean firms expand their overseas operations. KITA will do everything it can to see that the free trade agreement with the U.S. gets all the approvals it needs to be put into effect as early as possible including parliamentary approvals both in Korea and the United States. He will also steer KITA to do its part for an early solution to outstanding problems associated with the World Trade Organization, the Doha Development Agenda and the free trade agreement with the European Union to provide a systematic and policy base to support exporters' expansion of trade.
The new KITA chairman said he will continue to hold the positions of Presidential economic adviser and chairman of the steering committee of the G-20 summit meeting for the time being. He said he assumed the two important jobs as a private citizen and they are both related to the work he will perform as the KITA chairman.
Sakong has called on such world financial figures as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the chairman of the steering committee of the G-20 summit; Secretary-Gen. of the OECD Don Johnston; Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.S. Economic Recovery Advisory Committee; and the finance ministers of France and Germany during his recent overseas tours.
He is scheduled to accompany President Lee Myung-bak on state visits to Indonesia and Australia and meet with the finance ministers of those countries to ask for their support to keep trade protectionism from spreading at the G-20 summit meeting.
On the issues raised by the political community calling on businesses to make facility investments this year to revive the economy, he said it is up to each individual firm, but he will remind them that the crisis will end sooner and will call for their investments under a long-term perspective, as jobs will be created when the economy begins to recover, buoyed by their investments.
"Businessmen should be at the forefront of efforts to revive the economy through investments, which will quicken the economic recovery and create jobs as the economic conditions take a turn for the better," the KITA top executive said.
He said he heard that he was tapped to head KITA while he was on a recent trip to London. The former chairman informed the government that he wanted to resign at the end of his term, the new KITA chairman said. nw

Dr. Sakong Il, the new chairman of the Korea International Trade Association.

A scene of the KITA board of directors meeting on Feb.24, which named Dr. Sakong Il as the new chairman of KITA.