미국 워싱턴포스트지(이하 WP)가 한국의 경제위기를 집중 조명, “한때 경제 강국이었던 한국이 자체 마력을 잃은 것으로 보인다”고 분석했다.
▲ South Korea President Park Geun-hye, center, receives German President Joachim Gauck and his partner, Daniela Schadt, at a ceremony in Seoul on Oct. 12, 2015. (Wolfgang Kumm/European Press photo Agency)2015년 10월 12일, 서울의 한 기념식, 가운데 박근혜 한국 대통령과 요하임 가우크 독일 대통령, 그리고 그의 파트너 다니엘라 샤트 |
WP는 13일 국제통화기금을 인용, 5년 전 6% 이상의 성장률을 기록한 바 있는 한국이 올해 성장 전망률은 2.7%에 불과하며 박근혜 대통령의 ‘창조경제’ 전략은 어려움을 겪고 있는 대다수의 중소기업들에게 큰 도움이 못되고 있다며 이같이 평가했다.
WP는 특히 홍콩의 한 경제전문가의 말을 인용해 한국 경제는 마력을 잃고 멈춰서 있으며 중국의 경기침체와 위엔의 약세로 수출이 타격을 입은 가운데 지금 한국은 “세계 무역 침체의 선두에 있다”고 전했다.
WP는 “삼성과 거래하는 여러 회사가 이미 파산했다”는 삼성전자 하청업체 직원의 말을 전하면서 국내 중소기업들은 대기업은 물론 중국과 베트남의 경쟁업체에 의해 이중고를 겪고 있다고 지적했다.
뿐만 아니라 “국내라고 상황이 더 밝은 것은 아니다”면서 “임금은 동결된 상태며 집값은 천정부지로 치솟았고 한국인들은 계속해서 엄청나게 많은 부채를 안고 있다”고 꼬집었다.
WP는 대규모 기업 대표단과 동행한 박근혜 대통령의 방미 소식을 전하기도 했다.
신문은 “박 대통령의 가장 커다란 어려움은 북한과 그 핵무기가 아니고, 미국을 소외시키지 않고 중국에 다가가는 것”이라며 이는 “바로 경제 때문이다. 그 현실 때문에 박 대통령이 대규모 기업 대표단을 미국에 동행시킨 것”이라고 분석했다.
그러면서 박 대통령이 이번 방미 일정에 166명의 기업 대표들과 동행했고, 이는 2년 전 첫 번째 공식 방문 때의 3배라고 전했다.
WP는 “기업 대표단에는 삼성전자와 현대 자동차 사장단 그리고 전경련 회장이 포함됐으며, 대통령 수행 명부에는 한국의 재벌 서열 3번째인 SK그룹의 최태원 회장도 있었다”고 전하는 동시 최태원 회장에 대해 “그는 배임죄로 유죄선고를 받았으나, 박 대통령이 한국 경제에 그가 필요하다며 최근 사면하여 풀려났다”고 부연했다.
다음은 뉴스프로가 번역한 워싱턴 포스트의 기사 전문
South Korea was once an economic tiger but seems to have ‘lost its mojo’ By Anna Fifield October 13 The business contingent was to include the presidents of Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor and the head of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Also slated to accompany the president is Chey Tae-won, the chairman of SK Group, the country’s third-largest conglomerate, whose conviction for misappropriating company funds Park recently quashed, releasing him from prison and saying that the South Korean economy needed him back. Park’s biggest challenge is not North Korea and its nuclear weapons, or cozying up to China without alienating the United States. It’s the economy. And the fact that she has taken such a huge business delegation to the United States reflects that. “There are still many mountains to cross for a new economic takeoff,” Park said during a meeting with her economic advisers last week, according to aYonhap News Agency report. Park will confer with President Obama at the White House on Friday, a meeting that was delayed when she canceled a planned visit in June to stay home and deal with the outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome — which itself became another economic challenge, deterring much-needed tourist visits. South Korea went through several decades of astonishingly fast industrialization — propelled by exports of high-tech ships and low-cost cars, and led by Park’s father, former president Park Chung-hee — to become a global manufacturing powerhouse. But now the economy is hitting the buffers. “This feels like an economy that’s lost its mojo,” said Frederic Neumann, co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC in Hong Kong. Exports account for half of South Korea’s economy, with 60 percent of outbound goods heading to emerging markets. Chief among them is China, which is going through its own economic slowdown, crimping demand for Korean products. Then there’s North Korea’s saber rattling and China’s devalued currency, which is making it more expensive for Chinese tourists to come here. These factors have coincided to bring about a fall in South Korea’s exports for nine consecutive months, including by 8.3 percent in September from a year earlier. “Korea is a highly export-dependent economy and has been for decades,” said Neumann of HSBC. “That means that it’s at the forefront of this global trade downturn.” Things at home are hardly rosier. Wages have remained stagnant, home prices have gone through the roof, and South Koreans continue to have exceptionally high debt levels. This is making the central bank reluctant to cut interest rates out of fear it will encourage even more borrowing. The International Monetary Fund last week cut its forecast for South Korean growth this year to 2.7 percent, a full point lower than it projected in January. Compare that to the more than 6 percent growth rates South Korea was chalking up five years ago. To try to lessen South Korea’s reliance on exports, Park has been promoting a “creative economy” strategy — fostering start-ups and encouraging entrepreneurship. But the effort is moving slowly and will not provide any relief to South Korea’s 3 million small and medium enterprises. In Suwon, an industrial city outside Seoul that is home to Samsung Electronics, the corporate behemoth that looms over the South Korean economy, the mood is depressed. “It’s terrible. It’s really terrible. Seventy percent of our business has gone to Vietnam,” said a representative of one company that makes parts for smartphones. He spoke on the condition of anonymity for him and his company to avoid angering clients, which include Samsung and LG. “Two years ago, our orders started to fall. A lot of companies that deal with Samsung have gone bankrupt.” In a light-manufacturing park on the outskirts of Suwon, hundreds of smaller firms produce the tiniest of parts for the electronics giants. While it is the conglomerates whose brand names are known, it is these small companies that make their products work. And they are being squeezed by the clients on one side and on the other side by Chinese and, increasingly, Vietnamese competitors who can make the same products. “We’re now competing with Chinese companies, and the unit prices have dropped significantly,” said Chun Yong-son, the owner of Kyungsung Electronics, a small company that supplies LED lights to television makers. “For example, if it costs $1 for a Korean company to make something, it costs only 30 cents for a Chinese company to make it,” Chun said, sitting outside his building, smoking with his workers. “So we are losing a lot of manufacturing.” Park’s policies are not helping, he said. The minimum hourly wage will rise from $4.85 this year to $5.25 next year. Chun said he might have to lay off some of his 20 employees next year to counteract the increase. “It’s inevitable that people will lose their jobs, because there is less work, requiring fewer people,” he said, adding that the increase in labor costs will compound that problem. This has other repercussions. A travel company called Hana Tour has a branch in the industrial park, and it reports a decline in business trips as a result of the economic worries. “If two people used to go abroad in the past, now only one goes,” said Yoon Jung-hwa, a travel agent there. “Sometimes we call regular clients to ask why they’re not traveling, and they say they’re making fewer trips because the economy is bad.” Now is a time of reckoning, said Lee Kwi-son, a real estate agent who rents out units in the industrial park. “Companies around here are reaching the point where they have to decide if they’re able to carry on,” he said, “if they will have to scale back or if they will have to wrap up their businesses.” |