Only one in four (27.3%) foreign-invested companies doing business in Korea is satisfied with the Korean business environment, according to a survey of 300 foreign CEOs conducted by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA).
7.7% of respondents said they were dissatisfied while 59.2% were neutral. When asked about their concerns in doing business, they complained of R&D and innovation conditions (25.4%), tax regulations (22.5%), labor issues (22.2%) and issues related to protection of intellectual property rights (19.6%).
Based on the results of this survey, KOTRA said that the critical factors for doing business in Korea are a favorable labor, regulations, tax and financial environment. “Similar to the survey results in 2015, Korea’s labor, tax and regulation environments were cited as major areas where problems need to be resolved. In particular, the importance of a favorable labor environment is growing and therefore, the labor market needs to be improved” a KOTRA official said. The labor problems survey respondents cited were high wage levels (30.2%), difficulty of finding suitable employees (26%), and inflexible dismissal regulations (14.8%).
When asked about labor policies they require, they answered wage subsidies and tax benefits (29.6%), a professional workforce (19.9%), better labor regulations (18.3%) and training and education for workers (12.5%).