활동/뉴스

*2013년 9월 9일 게시

태평양도서국가 개발협력포럼 창립회의

2013년 8월 5일-7일, 휘지

유엔산업개발기구 서울투자진흥사무소 이수택 대표

세션 5: 녹·청색 경제 달성을 위한 혁신의 중요성, 2013년 8월 6일

[국문요약]

개도국의 지속 가능한 산업개발을 위해 설립된 유엔산업개발기구 (이하 “UNIDO”)는 특히 에너지와 환경에 관한 녹색 구상(Green Initiative) 하에 녹색산업 및 녹색산업화를 적극 지원하고 있습니다. 또한, 지난 2012년 비엔나에서 주최한 국제 남-남 개발 엑스포” (Global South-South Development Expo)의 사례와 같이 UNIDO는 전통적인 남북협력뿐 아니라 남남협력의 방식을 통해서도 개발협력 활동을 지원하고 있습니다. 저희 UNIDO 서울투자진흥사무소는 민관협력을 통한 대 개도국 투자 및 기술이전을 증진함으로써 개도국 현지의 고용을 창출하고 일방적인 투자가 아닌 win-win 협력을 만들어내는 것을 목표로 하고 있습니다. 이처럼 UNIDO는 태평양 도서국가 개발포럼에서 다루는 현안들을 함께 논의할 가장 적합한 UN기구라고 생각합니다.

한국의 1950년대 후반 1인당 국민소득은 100달러에 미치지 못하는 국가였으나, 현재 경제, 사회, 정치적인 측면에서 많은 개발도상국들의 롤 모델이 되었습니다. 국가적 개발정책과 전략을 수립한 정부의 리더십, 고등교육을 받은 풍부한 인적 자원, 국민들의 공동체 의식이 한국의 성공적인 발전의 밑바탕이 되었습니다. 50년 대 후반 해외원조의 급감, IMF 금융위기 등 발전 과정에서 다양한 어려움에 부딪히기도 하였지만, 위기를 기회로 삼아 혁신과 창조로 이를 극복해 왔습니다. 특히, 2000년대 들어서는 책임의식을 가지고 “환경 문제”에 주의를 기울이기 시작하여, “저탄소 녹생성장”을 장기 국가발전전략으로 삼고, 2013년부터는 “창조 경제”라는 모토 하에 창의성과 혁신을 통해 미래의 녹색 경제가 ‘지속 가능한’ 것이 되도록 하는 데 초점을 맞추고 있습니다.

이를 바탕으로 포럼에 참가한 국가들에게 조심스럽게 정책적인 제안을 하자면, 태평양 도서국가들은 개발을 위한 비전과 목표를 스스로 세워야 합니다. 개발원조가 필요한지, 필요하다면 어떠한 원조가, 어떤 방식으로 필요한지는 ‘그들에 의해서’가 아니라 ‘우리 스스로’가 결정해야 합니다. 여기에서, 한국의 사례에서와 같이 개발과제와 기타 이해관계를 조율할 수 있는 정치적 리더십이 특히 요구되며, 환경 보호도 또 다른 절대적인 필요전제조건임을 잊어서는 안 될 것입니다. 마지막으로 저는 태평양도서국가들 간의 전통적 협력 체제를 최대한 활용하라고 제안하고 싶습니다. 개발과정에서 리더십과 혁신, 파트너십을 바탕으로 태평양도서국가들이 국제사회에서 하나의 독립체로서 하나된 목소리를 내고, 스스로의 계획과 비전을 실현시킬 것을 기대합니다. 저는 이 포럼을 통해 태평양도서국가들이 녹·청색 경제를 달성하는 데 성공적인 청사진을 만들어낼 수 있기를 희망합니다.

[영문 원본]

INTRODUCTION

I have very special feelings and memories of Fiji and many South Pacific island countries from quite a long time ago, and I am indeed pleased and honored to be back here today through this wonderful occasion.

Taking this opportunity, I should like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all the people involved in organizing this Forum and I hope we can draw, through this event, a successful blueprint for achieving green and blue economies in the Pacific Islands.

First of all, I am very glad to note of three subtitles for this conference “leadership, innovation and partnership”. I believe, these three words are very well chosen.

In Asian culture, “3” means “completeness”.

In a way, leadership, innovation and partnership, are the three VERY components, necessary for a stable development.

As we add the concept of “green and blue” to the three components, I believe it completes the ideology of “development cooperation” of Today and Tomorrow.

Today, I would like to briefly touch upon, firstly, on the role of UNIDO in development cooperation, and secondly, what Korea has experienced during its past economic and political development, and finally, some possible policy implications/options of these for the participants in this Forum.

UNIDO is a specialized agency of the UN to facilitate sustainable industrial development in developing countries.

UNIDO has THREE KEY FOCUSES on, firstly, poverty reduction through productive activities, secondly, trade capacity-building and lastly, energy and environment.

In the energy and environment field, under its Green Initiative, UNIDO both promotes “green industry” as well as “greening” of industry.

• For promotion of green industries, UNIDO facilitates adoption of environmentally sound technologies in green industries such as pulp and paper, textile, food processing, seafood processing, metal fishing and ecotourism.
• UNIDO also implements the e-waste programme to foster the development of an environmentally sound e-waste recycling industry in developing countries.
• For greening of industry, UNIDO implements projects not only to address pollution but also transfers the technology to mitigate it.
• For instance, it runs the global mercury programme to improve the health and environment of artisanal gold mining communities by reducing mercury emissions.
• In 2012, UNIDO spent 46% of its programme budget solely on the energy and environment areas.

It is important, I believe, to note that UNIDO implements its activities through both North-South cooperation, a traditional way for development cooperation and South-South cooperation, a newly emerging way of development cooperation.

• The Global South-South Development Expo in 2012 is a good example of this.
• This Expo is the first event of its kind to showcase the successful South-grown Development Solutions (SDSs) in the context of meeting the MDG goals and the global partnership.
• UNIDO hosted this event in Vienna, co-organized with the UNDP, Special Unit for South-South Cooperation of UN, with a theme of “Investing in Energy and Climate Change: Inclusive Partnership for Sustainable Development.”

I believe that UNIDO is one of the most suitable UN agencies which can contribute much in handling the issues which will be addressed during this Pacific Islands Development Forum.

Having said all these, I should like to introduce my own office, UNIDO ITPO Korea. UNIDO has two kinds of field offices, one is the field offices in developing countries which directly deal with development projects in the field. The other one is UNIDO ITPO, like mine, Investment and Technology Promotion Office. Main function of ITPO is to promote investment either from private or public sectors of the resident country, as for me from Korea to developing countries. My main job is to persuade them to make their investment to developing countries. UNIDO believes that through this interaction, we can create jobs in the developing countries and through this process we can transfer technologies to the developing countries. UNIDO has a very unique principle, that is, to create win/win situation. This investment should not be a one way stream, but it should be a both way interaction. Any investment should bring a positive result to both investors and investees.

Very recently, I have visited three African states with Korean private company representatives. We have tried to find out possibilities of cooperation in the field of renewable energies from the waste treatment. I can dare to say that it was quite successful and I personally wish to apply similar technology to this region of the world as well.

Korea’s Experience

Korea has been being considered as a role model by many developing countries for its remarkable economic, social and political advancement since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

• In late 1950s’, per capita income of Korea was less than 100 US$. Totally devastated country by the Korean War. Nothing was left. But today, Korea has become a VERY DIFFERENT country
• According to the Global Competitiveness Report for 2012-2013 of World Economic Forum, Korea ranks 19th in the overall global competitiveness and 17th in innovation in the world.
• In 2012, Korea was the 8th largest exporter and ranked 15th in GDP, according to WTO and IMF, respectively.
• Korea is also a member country of the Development Assistance Committee of OECD. It currently spends 0.15% of Korea’s Gross National Income (GNI) on ODA and plans to expand it up to 0.25% by 2015.

How can Korea make this “Ashes to Prosperity” legend? How can Korea accomplish this mission of development within this 50 years’ span of time, while the western industrial countries took more than two centuries?

To explain this phenomenon, I would like to briefly highlight some of the major driving forces for the Korea’s development.

• First, at the core of Korea’s development, there existed a very strong but uncorrupted political leadership of the government.
• The leadership has set national development agenda, and among many options, then leadership has chosen the export-driven economic development strategy. Since Korea did not have enough natural resources other than human resources, export would be the only way for their own survival.
• To increase export, the government had exercised strong policy means, like influence on industries through financial and tax incentives.
• Second, education played a key role in Korea’s development.
• Education is regarded as important way of raising disciplined manpower. In the Korean culture, it has been widely accepted that no matter how poor one family is, every child should go to school and get enough education for escaping from the poverty. Constant accumulation of educated human resources has certainly been the enabler of Korea’s political and economic development.
• At the initial stage of its development, human resources were the only asset available in Korea.
• With only little natural resources, Korea had to rely solely on its educated human resources for their development.
• Third, the strong consensus building among Koreans was an important driving force.
• Koreans were strongly oriented towards consensus-building to mobilize their efforts and overcome the country’s economic hardship.
• On the slide, at the top, you can see how Koreans donated gold to pay back the foreign reserve debt during the IMF Crisis in late 90s, and, at the bottom, from the left side, Korea organized the Olympics in 1988 and World Cup soccer game in 2002.

Of course, Korea’s economy has not always been in the sunny side. It has also had some obstacles and serious difficulties during the course of its economic transformation since 1960. What I would like to stress is that whenever Korea had difficulties, they have tried to overcome these obstacles with INNOVATION and CREATIVITY.

• In the 1960s, most Koreans were still impoverished from the war and the per capita income was only 82 dollars. South Korea lagged far behind North Korea both in terms of per capita income and industrial capacity. In 2012, per capita income has reached around 22,000 dollars.
• In late 1950s’ faced with the significant reduction of foreign aid, especially, the US’ assistance to finance reconstruction after the Korean War, Korea was obliged to start to launch Five-Year-Economic-Development Plans. The first one was started in 1962 and it went on until the early 1990s
• Suffering from lack of development funds, Korean government decided to find a solution to attract foreign capital to regenerate the economy, policy makers under the leadership of General Park Chung-Hee started to focus on developing infrastructure for export industries. Korea started its industry from light one, like garment and fabric industry and then to small electronic goods, like transistor radios, microwave ovens, etc.

In the 1970s, Korea underwent another important transition of its industrial structure from light industry export to heavy and chemical industries export.

• The proportion of Korea’s exports of high technology grew from 4.8% in 1970 to 30% in 1995, (according to the Bank of Korea.)
• In the 1980s, economic stabilization and liberalization in Korea took place.
• The country mainly promoted market competition without the government’s intervention. As a result, the private sector achieved improved productivity and competitiveness in the competition-driven domestic market.
• In the 1990s, however, Korea faced the national bailout which happened during what we call “Asian economic crisis” or “IMF crisis”.
• This event ultimately led Korea to more careful and scrupulous management of its foreign reserves. Today, Korea’s foreign reserve is 7th largest in the world.

After the year 2000, Korea began to look at and started to look after “environmental problems.” Before this, Korea intentionally ignored the environment issues.

• During the first decade of 21 century, the Korean government had flagged its mottos which can be read “innovation economy” and “green growth”.
• In part, this was in response to its recognition of the fact that, in 2010, Korea was the world’s 10th largest producer of carbon dioxide emission.

So, it was the interest of Korea to set up its own model of decoupling economic development from environmental degradation.

• In 2005, the concept of “green growth” was firstly adopted by the Korean government at the Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development, co-hosted by the Korean Ministry of Environment and UNESCAP.
• “Green growth” means the harmony of economic growth and environment protection.
• In 2009, Korea announced its “Low-Carbon, Green-Growth” strategy as a key long-term national development strategy. The key target was to reduce the level of carbon-dioxide emissions, estimated in 2005, by 4% by 2020.
• This strategy included a Green New Deal which is a fiscal stimulus package, around USD 38.1 billion, for more efficient use of resources such as renewable energies, low-carbon vehicles, energy-efficient buildings and fresh water.
• It also set up a five-year plan for green growth from 2009 to 2013 that 2% of GDP would be spent as investment in green sectors such as renewable energies, clean technologies and water, energy-efficient manufacturing, aiming at an increase of production jobs and reduction of greenhouse gases.

Currently, from 2013, the Korean government’s motto is “creative economy”.

Creative economy means to add the element of “innovation II” to the green economy which Korea has been pursuing.

• Since creation of a green economy may intrinsically have both positive and negative impacts and we need “innovation” to overcome or prevent the negative impacts.
• It is important to promote and create industries that are driven by creativity or innovation in order to make Korea’s future green economy more “sustainable”.
• Important factors to sustain green economy are to create jobs for the youth, to keep a healthy and balanced competition as well as structural collaborations between large congrolomates, Samsung, Hyundai, LG and small and medium sized companies, and also to create an “inclusive” policy for all the people of Korea in different economic levels.
• As we have seen until now, Korea has continuously made improvements through the DEVELOPMENT process. One interesting thing is, WHENEVER they face difficulties, they try to overcome these with counter-values thru “innovation and creativity”. The current President Park Geun-hye recently stressed in a speech that “CRISIS IS OPPORTUNITY.”  I believe this is the very spirit of the Korean people facing difficulties and obstacles.
• In every country and in each development stage, leadership, innovation and partnership are all the time required. Without these factors, I believe no economy can really pursue to move forward, and the global economy, as we now see, is looking for a new innovative direction to fuel the growth engine. Development cooperation, I believe, could be one viable option in this context.

CONCLUSIONS

I hope that this Korean story can serve as food for our thoughts.

• What implications does the story have for the Pacific Island countries?

• First of all, the Pacific Islands countries should be a leader and be the final decision-maker of your own future. You have to dream your own vision and set up your own goals for development. If you really believe it would be better to stay as it always has been and live as it is now, that is also OK.     
• But if we really want to change, we have to find out what we can do, what our future would be and how we can achieve it. After having our own visions and dreams set up, we can ask then our friends in the international community, our neighboring friends, like China, Russia, Japan and other Pacific-rim countries like US and UN agencies like UNIDO, UNDP, UNEP, UNESCAP, etc. We can ask them to come and share their experiences and wisdom.
• To reiterate, the issues of what, how, and whether development assistance is needed, should be clearly defined and raised by OURSELVES, NOT by THEMSELVES.
• To achieve this, as we have seen in the case of Korea, political leadership is an absolute prerequisite. Political leadership should ensure the harmonization between the issues of development and the interests of the public. The political leaders should set development goals which are deeply related to the real needs of the people.
• Environmental protection is another absolute prerequisite, which have been emphasized many times in the discussions we had today. Environmental protection must be regarded as a necessary factor.
• My final and humble personal suggestion is to take advantage of / make the most of your TRADITIONAL UNITY of the Pacific Islands Bondage. The Pacific Islanders should act as a unified one in the international community and, if possible, you can draw your own plan for your own future and you can dream your own vision as a single entity.
• I believe that the leaders and policy makers as well as representatives from civil society and private sector at this Forum will have an excellent opportunity to discuss on creating new green/blue innovation-driven industries which will be centered on the people’s needs of their countries and the region as a whole.

Thank you.