Park Geun-hye administration underlines the importance of unification under the slogan of ‘bonanza of national unification.’ However, Korea still lacks concrete plans. Germany prepared for unification for 20 years and injected around 2,000 trillion won ($1.9 trillion) for unification. According to the statistics compiled in 2011, the national unification, if achieved in 2020, would incur over 371 trillion won for South Korea. The amount exceeds the Korean government budget for 2014.

This explains why some claim unification would do more harm than good for Korea although it would generate a lot of benefits.

To closely look into what are required for successful unification, the 15th World Knowledge Forum (WKF) selected unification as one of the 10 key issues for this year.

The session titled ‘Unification: Bonanza or Risk,’ will explore how to move the socialist state North Korea into a market economy in the short to long run. During the session, experts who have conducted intensive research on a transitional economy of Eastern Europe, China and Germany will offer insights on unification of Korea. The session will be chaired by Seoul National University professor Kim Byung-yeon, an expert on transition economy and attended by Arizona State University professor emeritus of economics Josef Brada, University of Hong Kong Quoin professor in Economic Development Chenggang Xu and Roland Berger Strategy Consultants Deputy CEO Stefan Schaible. Roland Berger is the consulting firm, which advised the Eastern Germany on making a transition to a market economy in the process of Germany’s unification.

First, preparing for the unification requires a precise understanding of North Korea and the Kim Jong-un regime. In the ‘North Korea under Kim Jong-Un’ session, global top-notch experts about North Korea will give a diagnosis on the country in an era of the young Kim. The session will be attended by specialists from Korea, the US and China, including Robert Einhorn, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who led the US policy on North Korea in the past.

‘One Asia’ is also one of the WKF’s 10 key topics for this year.

The WKF has underscored One Asia for the last several years to heighten a sense of community in Asia and step up mutual cooperation. This year, the forum aims to talk about a grand integration of Asia at the pan-regional level that goes beyond East Asia.

Taking into consideration the looming economic integration in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the forum has arranged a slew of sessions on the ASEAN this year. The ASEAN’s economic ministers gathered in Naypyidaw, Myanmar in August and discussed the inauguration of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). If the AEC is launched, it will become an economic community with a combined 600 million population and over $2.3 trillion gross domestic product (GDP).

The WKF invited an array of Southeast Asian speakers to learn about the ASEAN, a land of opportunity. One of them is Blue Bird Group’s president director Noni Purnomo, who was picked by the Forbes as one of ‘12 Women to Watch in Asia’ last year. She will be speaking at the WKF’s podium.

Blue Bird Group started its business with 25 cabs in 1972 and became Indonesia’s biggest taxi company.

The WKF’s 10th topic will be featured in the ‘Central Bankers Roundtable’ session, which will assemble governors of central banks and shed new light on the role of central banks.

Central banks were at the heart of the effort to cope with the global financial crisis in 2008. They took the unprecedented level of quantitative easing. This session will be a rare opportunity to listen to the experience of former central bankers who took countermeasures on the center stage during the crisis. The session will also present their insight into what central banks should do to invigorate the global economy.

Jean-Claude Trichet, former president of the European Central Bank (ECB), will be attending the WKF. The ECB’s former president, who has been nicknamed Mr Euro, is a living witness of the eurozone economy. In addition, prominent figures such as Masaaki Shirakawa, former governor of the Bank of Japan, and Jacob A. Frenkel, former governor of the Bank of Israel, will partake in the session.


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