Jongwook Cho: "Platforms and Self-Employed Must Build a Win-Win Ecosystem"

Holding a Policy Meeting with the Korea Federation of SMEs

Jong-wook Cho, Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission. (File photo)

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] Cho Sung-wook, Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, stated on the 20th, "There is a need to establish a win-win ecosystem between platforms and self-employed business owners."

On this day, Chairman Cho held a policy meeting with Kim Ki-moon, Chairman of the Korea Federation of SMEs, and representatives of associations and cooperatives related to small and medium enterprises, saying, "If platforms abuse their power and shift the burden onto small business owners, it could act not as an opportunity but rather as a crisis."

Chairman Cho emphasized, "To this end, we will enact the Online Platform Fairness Act to promote fair trade between platforms and tenant businesses, and strengthen monitoring of unfair practices that hinder innovation incentives in the digital economy, such as preferential treatment by platform operators. We will also expand systems to strengthen the bargaining power of the weaker party, including preparing methods and procedures for adjusting subcontract payments through the Korea Federation of SMEs."

At the meeting, Kim Ki-moon, Chairman of the Korea Federation of SMEs, said that polarization between large and small and medium enterprises has worsened due to the continued spread of the COVID-19 virus, and the first step to resolve this is to eradicate unfair trade. Chairman Kim said, "Especially, the biggest difficulty for small and medium business owners is the issue of not being able to reflect soaring raw material prices in delivery payments," adding, "I hope the Fair Trade Commission will actively prepare measures to resolve this."

In addition, the industry proposed ▲ resolving the issue of excessive online platform fees ▲ strengthening monitoring of unilateral raw material price increases or post-settlement by large corporations ▲ revitalizing the subcontract payment adjustment negotiation system ▲ differentiating penalty rates by company size ▲ strengthening damage compensation limits related to technology theft.