The European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea has a membership of over 220 companies, most of which are those companies with an office or production in Korea but with headquarters in the EU.
Mr. Jim Enters is the president of the EU Chamber and offers here some comments on the activities and services the organization can provide for European companies.

Well, we were founded about eleven years ago. In fact, last year we celebrated our tenth anniversary. When it all began, Korea was not an easy place in which to do business. Foreign managers had a lot of problems here because of taxes and other regulations. Consequently, the European community got together and discussed their problems with each other and shared information. Initially it was more of an informal gathering, trying to seek help and advice from each other, but it soon reached the point where we thought there was real need, so we founded the European Union Chamber of Commerce that would be designed to work for EU companies here in Korea. We joined forces to try and work with the Korean government to solve some of the problems we had, for example tax problems, intellectual property rights problems, and so on, because we felt that as individual companies, we had no chance to accomplish anything. With a united front we could achieve much more.

So we formed committees. We formed a banking committee, for instance, in which all the European banks would become a member, and the committee on behalf of the European banks here could work with the Korean government to relax some of the regulations. We have 11 committees, including a foreign investment and taxation committee, an alcoholic beverage committee and others that work on behalf of our members in their respective industries. And that has worked very well. This is one of the primary ways in which we have been providing services to our members.

We also have publications. First of all, we have our directory with all our members listed, so they can easily find and call up their colleagues to discuss problems, etc. We have a bimonthly newsletter where we keep our members informed about changes going on in industry here, and we have a monthly statistical bulletin where we provide relevant statistics for the mangers who need to write a monthly report which might require supporting data on inflation, consumer indices, GDP, or other numbers. We also have monthly luncheon meetings where we invite guest speakers-usually Korean, very often from the government or Korean government organizations. So in this way, we provide the managers at the EU companies here with the tools to do their business.

I think Korea is opening up, is liberalizing. So there will be less need for us to jointly fight the Korean government on tax issues and IPR rights and other things. So a lot of the initial needs the European companies had ten years ago have vanished. Additionally, I feel that trade is a two-way street, not one-way, so I think we should open up our chamber to Korean companies that want to do business in the EU-those investing in the EU or otherwise. If we do that I think we can provide them a service and they can also do some networking with our members. As I said, the business climate has improved a lot, so our list of issues has been reduced very much now.

The tax issue is still a very high priority. Every year we publish what's called a "Trade Issue Booklet," in which each of our committees note the problems that they have in doing business in Korea. I also served as the chairman of the foreign investment and taxation committee, and last year I stopped making a long list of issues and concentrated on the one single issue of taxation.

The other priority involves Korea's responsibilities as a member of the World Trade Organization and the OECD. Korea has also signed what they call a "framework agreement" with the Euro-pean Union in Brussels. The vice president of the European Union, Sir Leon Brittan, has asked the commercial counselors of the embassies, the EU delegation in Korea, and the EU Chamber in Korea to report any issues where the Korean government is not living up to this framework agreement, OECD promises, etc., so that then the EU can follow up on it. So we are performing a sort of monitoring function here. That will be one of the major issues this year.

Last year one of our major agenda points was to improve our contact with key ministries-MOFE, MOTIE, Labor, Sports & Culture, etc. This year we want to continue that with other organizations.

One example in the chemical field involves the MSDS-Material Safety Data Sheet-which has already been in place for a long time in the United States and Europe. The government here decided that Korea needed an MSDS, which describes the hazards of a product, what dangers exist, and how to correct them. So, the Korean government started designing their own MSDS sheets. That is when the EU Chamber, our chemical committee, got together with the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) and made a joint chemical committee and offered the Korean government our experience. We said, "Don't reinvent the wheel. MSDS sheets are already in use in United States and Europe, and there's an OECD guideline as well. Why not just use one of those examples to make sure everything is in line with internationally accepted standards?" And we were successful. They adopted the OECD format.

On selected issues. Here we made a real joint committee. We don't want to duplicate each other, but on the other hand sometimes the Americans have other views on a subject than we Europeans have. And I find their approach often too direct. We Europeans look more for dialog and cooperation and we think we can accomplish exactly the same or more by creating an atmosphere of cooperation, assistance, and dialog.