Archive
나 혼내지 마요.사대주의자 아니예요.다만 지금의 3차외환위기 에
있어 한국의 대외신인도가 문제가 되기에,그들이 임창열 부총리
를 어떻게 보는가를 아는것도 나쁘진 않겠지.
그런데 왜 이게 국내신문엔 그동안 통신보안이었을까요?
어쨌든,시간없는 분을 위해 요약했습니다.(중요부분만.)
1.임창열은 "약삭빠르지만(shrewd),시비를 잘 걸고(pugnacious),
정부에의한 통제경제주의자(dirigisme-->dirigste)"이다.
2.그것을 잘 아는 사람들은 그가 캉드쉬하고 협상이 끝나지 않았
음에도 마치 끝난것 처럼 행동한데 대해 캉드쉬가 제재를 가했어
도 당연하게 받아들이는 분위기였다.(비꼬는 투로 "politely"라
함.이는 캉드쉬가 매우 불쾌했으나 참았다는 뉘앙스.--->청와대에
서 협상타결추인하려고 영새미가 나와있다가
퇴장했던 황당한 일을 두고 말함.)
3.임창열은 폐쇄적이고,보수적인 관료.
민족주의적 성향있음.
4.그의 전임자였던 강경식이 오히려 현 위기에서는 더 적임자였을
것.(강경식 =자유시장신봉자,자유주의자.<-->임창열)
5.임창열은 confrontational하다.(이는 치명적인 말.즉 대화의 상
대로서 중대한 결격사유.본인 주)
6.임창열은 그의 성격에 문제가 있다.(한 외국 투자자의 말.)
결국 본인이 생각하기에 ,
만일 이글을 십분 받아들인다면
임창열을 단지 국제통화기금과 세계은행에서 일했다는 점만 보고
기용한 것이 치명적 실수.(영새미 최후의 악악악악수)
Lim Chang-yuel: Tough pragmatist behind
a smiling face Originally published: TUESDAY DECEMBER 2
1997 Peter Montagnon profiles the man leading
Seoul's IMF talks Newspaper pictures of Lim Chang-yuel, Sou
th Korea's finance minister, who is leading the country's rescue talks
with the International Monetary Fund, typically show a slightly pudgy, sm
iling face exuding easy-going congeniality.
But the reality is different, economists and officials say.
Mr Lim is a shrewd, but pugnacious bureaucrat and a firm believer
in the dirigiste traditions of South Korea's civil service.
Thus it surprised few that Michel Camdessus, IMF managing director,
yesterday politely rebutted his robust assertion on Sunday that
a deal was in the bag.
Mr Camdessus said the two sides had made a big leap to an agreement
but details still needed to be worked out.
The negative response of Seoul financial markets yesterday suggests
investors remain uncertain about how the final agreement's small print
will read, and how easy it will be to write it.
Unlike his predecessor, Kang Kyung-shik, who was abruptly dismissed
shortly before Korea turned to the IMF for help, Mr Lim is known as a
nationalist and conservative with no history of supporting economic
reform and deregulation.
While the motives behind his premature announcement remain unclear,
some in Seoul believe it was an attempt to bounce the IMF into a weak
agreement; many still expect him to stand firmly against excessive
dilution of the finance ministry's power.
"These are adversarial negotiations. Korea has no concept of a win-win
outcome," says one western diplomat. "Mr Lim is a smart guy," adds Sung
Hee-jwa of the Korea Economic Research Institute, "but his strong
personality may become a stumbling block".
In the background to Korea's economic crisis is the failure of President
Kim Young-sam's administration to push through economic reform which
might have weaned Korea off its dirigiste traditions.
Though he came into office promising such reform and has tried to
promote it by bringing Korea into the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, President Kim has met stubborn
resistance from the finance ministry's mandarins.
Korea's command-style economy is still reminiscent of the old East
Germany, says David Hale, chief economist of the Zurich financial
services group. The comparison is apt.
South Korea's chaebol conglomerates are reminiscent of the East German
Kombinate, power centres in their own right but closely linked to
government. Companies and banks talk about the need for globalisation,
but try to prevent global market forces interfering with how they do
business at home.
Most foreign economists agree Korea needs a market-oriented economic
system where banks and industrial companies are cast loose from
government patronage and forced to rely on their own ability to survive
and generate profits. But this needs cultural change as well as finance
ministry agreement to relax its grip.
An attempt two years ago to water down the finance ministry's power by
merging it with the more liberally minded Economic Planning Board is
widely seen as a failure. Finance ministry mandarins simply overwhelmed
the planners and sidelined them.
Public suggestions by Mr Kang that the right response to this year's spate
of bankruptcies was to speed economic reform were ignored by his own
officials. This is the conservative institutional tradition Mr Lim now has to
defend. Colleagues say Mr Lim's overseas experience, as the finance
ministry's attach� in London and as an executive director of the World
Bank, have not converted him to the cause of liberalism.
"I wish the dismissal of Mr Kang had not occurred. He's far more
reform-minded and would have been a much better person to negotiate
with the IMF," says one official who supports reform. "Mr Lim is a
traditional official, whose style tends to be confrontational."
Since becoming finance minister, Mr Lim has ruffled US feathers by an
initial reluctance to meet a visiting senior US Treasury official. Some
Korean officials suggest that, in his previous role of trade minister, he
aggravated rather than smoothed the dispute with the US over Korea's
closed car market. But his saving grace may be his pragmatism. "He is
tough, but he can be quite logical," says Sakong Il, chairman of the Institute
for Global Economics. "Once he sees the need, he can move promptly."
An example is the decision to open the bond market to foreign buyers two
weeks ago. Determination to keep them out had become an issue of
importance for conservative policy-makers, but, though Mr Lim was
simply adopting a plan prepared by Mr Kang, he went along with it in an
attempt to avoid seeking IMF help.
Colleagues say Mr Lim has a fine sense of which way the wind blows and
add he is under pressure to reach an IMF accord because of Korea's
looming presidential elections. Even so, the painful talks on OECD
membership show just how South Korean negotiators can wear their
interlocutors down.
In the IMF talks, the stakes are higher; victory for Mr Lim does not
necessarily mean agreement on the reforms Korea's foreign creditors
say it needs.
� Copyright the Financial Times Limited 1997
"FT" and "Financial Times" are trademarks of The Financial Times
Limited.