Entry barriers to professional services to be lowered: Yoon

Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said yesterday that the government will lower entry barriers to legal, accounting and consulting service markets within this year as part of efforts to boost the local service sector.

"The professional service market can offer new high value-added jobs and absorb highly-educated job seekers. A service market growth will also help the manufacturing sector grow," Yoon said in a weekly government meeting in Gwacheon.

"The government will lower entry barriers to the professional service market to spur competition and to boost the size of the market," he said.



His comment came as the state-run think tank Korea Development Institute recently submitted a draft report to the Finance Ministry to suggest several measures to deregulate the professional service market where only licensed professionals like lawyers, accountants, patent agents, doctors and pharmacists can provide services.

The measures suggested by the KDI include allowing non-lawyers and conglomerates to own a stake in a law firm and tearing down service barriers between lawyers, patent agents and certified public accountants.

The government has been pushing for deregulation of the professional service market since last September, as part of its "service industry advancement" measures.

However, local bar associations are opposed to the government`s move, saying deregulation in the legal service industry may lead to a reduction in the quality of services.

"We are opposed to the KDI`s suggestion of allowing non-lawyers to have a stake in a law firm because a legal service cannot, and should not, be regarded as a general business," Korean Bar Association spokesperson Chang Jin-young told The Korea Herald.

"Not only in Korea but in other countries, as far as I know, non-lawyers are banned from establishing a law firm," he said.

The Seoul Bar Association released a statement, saying "a non-lawyer`s ownership of a law firm will make law firms subordinate to market capital which undermines the fundamental legitimacy of the current lawyer licensing system."

The government said that the Finance Ministry and the KDI would hold a joint public hearing on Nov. 11-12 in Seoul to discuss the professional service market deregulation issue with academics and industry officials.

The ministry said it planned to finalize measures to deregulate the professional service market within December.

(yoonmi@heraldm.com)



By Kim Yoon-mi