Perspective from the Youth Alliance for the Future of
Korea: EFN Asia conference 2014
By Ms Kwon Ji-Eun, staff,
The Young Alliance for the Future of Korea
… This year's topic of the annual conference was
'Liberalism: Promoting Growth, Reducing Inequality', and the members from
developing Asian countries gather together to discuss the methodology to boost
the economic growth and to decrease the social inequality. Although economics
wasn't my major in the university, I was willing to give my best effort to
engage myself in the discussion concerning 'Growth and Distribution' with the experts from many Asian
countries.
Though, to some extent, the annual conference of EFN Asia
required the participants to possess specific expertise in terms of its
subject, the way of participation was fresh and distinguished from any
conventional forums or international conferences. When one session finishes,
any participants of the conference become either speakers or audiences freely
walking around the conference room. While holding a cup of coffee on one hand,
and snacks one the other hand, all the members involved in the conference conversed
with each other, as if they had been old friends.
The most impressive programs were 'Asian Cafe' and 'Speed
dating'. At first, 'Asian Cafe' is a program inspired by 'World Café', which
encourages the participants to communicate in a relaxed atmosphere, so if
someone presents their national economic situation and ideas to deal with the
presumable problems, effective counterplans are sought through a discussion.
Secondly, 'Speed dateing' was also a program, in which the participants
exchange ideas about current economic issues with their partner and then they
have a short discussion within one minute, yet they have to change the partner
constantly.
Choi Byung Il, President/CEO of Korea Economic Research
Institute, took charge of the host for 'Asian Cafe' for Korea case study. He
pointed out the vulnerability of domestic market and the unpreparedness for the
coming aging society as the main problems of Korean Economy, and urged the
modification of the economic fundamentals. Since all the participants might
share the ideas regarding growth and distribution from the perspective of
liberalism, lots of people agreed on his opinion. Especially, an opinion
suggested by an Indian panel claiming that economic system without innovations
is not only hard to sustain, but it can also cause a retrogression of free
market economy appealed to the participants
Also, most of participants agree on the proposition that
without growth, there's no distribution. After the two day's long conference, I
naturally thought of South Korea. The discussion about free school meals has
recently resumed. The relationship of growth and distribution is complementary,
so it's hard to stress just one aspect. Nevertheless, the one thing obvious is
that it's an absurd idea to insist only the importance of distribution without
considering that of growth seriously. Korean economy is struggling with its
frozen domestic market due to several unfavorable conditions such as
international recession and weak yen, presumable economic risks from China. I
doubt whether such situations are contemplated enough in the discussion
concerning the free meals in schools. I came up with the people saying
"don't be too stingy with foods for kids." It's really pity that the
main point of the discourse is blurred by such a groundless, emotional opinion,
when realistic thoughts and decisions are required. The experience in Hong Kong
made me think of the relation between growth and distribution as well as the
legitimacy of approach evaluating the reciprocity of those two values according
to the political logic.
-----------See also:
EFN 42: Other Speakers in Conference 2014, November 04, 2014
EFN Asia 43: Day 1 of Conference 2014, November 06, 2014
EFN Asia 44: Day 2 of Conference 2014, November 10, 2014
EFN Asia 45: Growth, Inequality and the Philippines, November 14, 2014
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