South Korea's major business groups on Tuesday strongly objected to opposition and government-proposed revisions to commercial and tax codes that they said will turn the country into one of the most business unfriendly nations in the world.
They insisted what the country needed instead was an additional removal of excessive regulations.
An image portraying the controvery over the commercial act (Yonhap)
"Tax revenues cannot but grow when businesses flourish and create more jobs," five major business organizations here said in a joint statement, released at the end of their annual consultative meeting.
"However, we cannot but express our concerns over the fact that there are growing calls to expand welfare spending by collecting more taxes without any serious measures to help vitalize the economy," they said.
The five business groups are the Korean Employers Federation, the Federation of Korean Industries, the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Korea International Trade Association and the Korea Federation of SMEs.
The joint statement came amid government efforts to revise the country's tax codes to raise corporate tax rates.
In a separate move, opposition parties are pushing for a revision of the commercial act that would limit the voting rights of the largest shareholders in local firms.
The move is largely aimed at limiting what the opposition parties have called "disproportionate amounts of power" enjoyed by a few family members of founders or owners of family-run conglomerates.
Still, the revision, if legislated, is expected to affect nearly all businesses here, including small and medium-sized enterprises.
"The commercial act revision that deals with corporate governance will undermine the very basic principles of the free market, while uniformly and blindly limiting the autonomy of all businesses," the business groups said.
"Should the revision be legislated as it is, it will likely expose the country and its companies to foreign hedge funds seeking to abuse the law, turning the country into the most business unfriendly nation in the world." (Yonhap)