[THE INVESTOR] A council on the international finance sector development kicked off with its first meeting convened this week, including panels composed of government officials, professors and economists. It aims to increase the nation’s ability to cope with rapidly changing global indices.

Its establishment is laudable amid the volatility of global indexes, a series of negative external factors and mounting uncertainties in financial markets.

Local market participants are pinning hopes on the council in terms of mapping out proactive strategies in macro-financial policies such as the management of foreign reserves and signing currency swaps with foreign counterparts.

Finance Minister Yoo Il-ho said that South Korea “should increase its capability to keep up with such rapidly-changing global financial trends.” He reiterated the nation needs to put priority on financial stability by maintaining international creditworthiness.

Directions are welcome. At the same time, policymakers need to seriously look into the main reasons behind South Korea’s poor ranking on the World Economic Forum’s global competiveness index. It has stayed below 70th place for the past few years.

It can be partly attributed to the inconvenience experienced by foreign financial firms operating here. Some of them go through complicated or longer-than-expected procedures in trying to gain regulatory approval when applying to open branches or liaison offices.

There is an urgent need to simplify business licensing procedures, which would shorten the time required to gain approval.

In addition, the government -- via urgent talks with financial regulatory agencies -- should ease uncertainty over sanctions by streamlining procedures including probes and final actions involved in disciplinary measures.

It sometimes takes more than half a year to finalize sanctions after inspectors complete their investigations. 

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)