Local Paper Headlines _September 5

1. Chosun Ilbo

- A 2,200-member unionized workers at the five power companies voluntarily disbanded yesterday, 15 hours after they staged an illegal strike near Korea University. Experts point out that the latest workout is attributed to management’s lack of punishment for participants in the 2002 illegal strike.

- Korea’s 750 intellectuals including professors and lawyers will have a press conference today and issue a statement opposing to the controversial wartime control transfer. In a pre-released statement, they say “the Roh government is using the security issue for political purposes,” and “government’s attempt to take independent wartime command under the veil of ‘self-defense,’ which in fact is based on anti-US and anti-alliance, is not true self-reliant defense.”

- It turned out that Seoul Guarantee Insurance Co., to which W11,900 bn worth of public fund has been poured, doubled the average salary of its employees for the past 6 years. During the same period, the company paid back only 18 per cent of its debt.

- ‘Financial broker’ Park Geun-sung was arrested by the prosecution on allegation of using its broad connections with political and financial circles to bribe financial institutions for easy loan.

2. Maeil Business Daily

- While neighboring countries see its economic future in the service industry which creates more jobs than manufacturing, Korea is still far lagging behind HongKong, Thailand, or Singapore in that regard largely due to lack of deregulation. Economic experts say the service industry is not taking off because of opposition from various interest groups and inconsistent policy implementation and that Korea should open the service market for foreign investors and lessen a slew of regulations in order to improve competitiveness in the service sector.

- From the first half of next year, profits gained by acts of industrial spying will be seized and the punishment for industrial spying will get harsher. Those who get caught leaking industrial technology will be sentenced up to seven years in prison.

-SidusHQ(IHQ), Korea’s biggest entertainment company, is dreaming of becoming Korea’s Warner Brothers after SK Telecom took over the management. IHQ has recently bought out five entertainment companies including Chungeorahm Film, the producer of ‘the Host.’ Stock price of the company rose 18.04 per cent for the last 10 days on expectation for synergy effects coming from SK Telecom’s participation in management.