South Korean President, Park Geun Hye readies the nation for a possible reunification. “Unification will allow the Korean economy to take a fresh leap forward and inject great vitality and energy.“ Park’s history is sad; she was in school when her mother was assassinated by a bullet meant for her father during an independence-day commemoration. Five years later, her father was assassinated by his own intelligence chief.
Recently President Park hosted Bill Gates as well as Mark Zuckerberg to help “energize her economic model” and bring back the punch into the economy. Her goal is to grow businesses in the nation that are outside of the Chaebol-conglomerates, as well as to “provide assistance to small and medium sized companies.” President Park hopes to get more small and medium sized businesses into the economic mix as they can be agile, dynamic, and very fast growing.
One central problem with the grand unification plan is the cost. Another issue is that public sentiment for the plan isn’t what it used to be. South Korea’s ministry of finance estimated the unification cost at almost $600 billion. Younger voters do not support this that much. According to Bloomberg, “the share of South Koreans who view unification as necessary fell to 54.8 percent last year from 57 percent a year earlier.” One interesting quote taken from a citizen was, “We’d have to bear the burden of the North Koreans’ poverty,” said Go Chul Wo, a 25-year-old private security guard. “I’d be happy to see one Korea, but I absolutely oppose unification that raises my taxes too high.”Efforts are being made to make people understand the importance of bringing the peninsula together. While funds were drawn to start a buffer fund for the day unification happens, more money was spent on marketing the fund than the money that was received in donations towards the fund. “There’s no knowing when unification will actually take place, but we will do our best to hasten the day.”
Image Credit: Bloomberg