Expand — not dismantle — the committee

The Pcfir must be upgraded with powers as strong as an administrative agency to redefine its status as a top supervisor of major national policies. The president must chair the committee himself.

Shin Yun-sik

The author is a former chairman of Hanaro Telecom. The liberal Moon Jae-in administration operated about 20 presidential committees. The conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration recently announced a plan to reduce the number to five. News reports says the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Pcfir) is one that will be shut down. But it would be better for the government to strengthen the function of the committee and expand its role.

The key terms for the fourth industrial revolution are hyper-connectivity, hyper-intelligence and hyper-convergence. Based on the convergence of ICT and AI at a speed 10 times faster than in the third industrial revolution, the future paradigm of the fourth industrial revolution will bring about drastic changes and innovations to the economy, culture and people’s everyday lives. Yoon should lead this revolution and all ministries must unite to succeed in the fourth industrial revolution so that the country will be one of the five superpowers of artificial intelligence.

Although the Moon administration created the Pcfir as a part of its 100 agendas, it mostly failed due to Moon’s indifference and incompetence. Despite expectations that Moon would chair the committee, someone else was named to the post, making the committee nothing more than an advisory arm of the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The results were disastrous. According to the World Bank’s assessment of countries’ abilities to carry out the fourth industrial revolution, Korea was ranked 23rd, behind Malaysia. On the IMD world ranking for corporate competitiveness based on government regulations and labor market flexibility released in 2021, Korea was ranked 49th among the 64 surveyed countries. That was because no innovations took place in important areas during the five years of Moon’s presidency.

On July 15, Science and ICT Minister Lee Jong-ho briefed the president about his ministry’s projects for the year. But it was largely disappointing. Rather than presenting the five top projects — which Yoon is already aware of — Lee should have first admitted that the Pcfir and his ministry, which oversees the committee, had failed to properly perform their roles, and instead should have presented a vision to make Korea an artificial intelligence power through the success of the fourth industrial revolution. But the minister missed the opportunity.

Among OECD members, Korea is the only country that has a postal system run by the government. And yet, no plan was proposed to establish a postal service with a precondition that it will eventually be operated as a public corporation. The minister also did not present any self-reform plans to consolidate or shut down research institutes, promotion agencies and other organizations under the ministry.

The Ministry of Education is no better. After the president said the ministry could become a subject of reform, it hurriedly concocted a plan to educate 150,000 workers in the semiconductor industry over the next decade. There is no need for the government to worry about business giants such as Samsung and SK. The real problem is the small chip companies that have an extreme shortage of workers in system chip design. The plan to educate workers for the semiconductor industry should not have been drawn up by the Ministry of Education alone. It should have been coordinated with the Ministry of Science and ICT and other ministries participating in the Pcfir as well as private companies.

In the era of the fourth industrial revolution, almost nothing can be resolved by a single ministry alone. It requires cooperation and the alignment of many ministries. As we have seen in the cases of the strike by contract workers at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and the plan to foster semiconductor talent, you should not make a decision hurriedly at the order of the president. For Korea to become an AI power that fits the new paradigm of the fourth industrial revolution, we must solve problems through a system.

To this end, the Pcfir must be upgraded with powers as strong as an administrative agency to redefine its status as a top supervisor of major national policies. The president must chair the committee himself and name two vice chairmen — one prime minister and one expert — with ministers and private experts comprising the rest of the committee.

The Pcfir also should absorb the Presidential Committee on Jobs to utilize its human and material resources. Subdivisions, a secretariat and taskforce teams should be established under the Pcfir to help oversee a number of projects aimed at upgrading Korea’ international status.

Korea has a history of becoming an IT power by succeeding in the third industrial revolution after pushing forward “informatization.” We must learn a lesson from the successful experience of implementing a policy of commercializing the ADSL high-speed internet for the first time in the world. Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.