Research Reports
Enactment of the Fundamental Act on Cooperatives and its Implications for Rural Community Development Policy and Practice
-
AuthorKim, Jeongseop
-
Publication Date2012.09.30
-
Original
The Cooperatives Act was enacted. This enabled people to establish easily cooperatives in various fields. A cooperative is an important vehicle for rural community development. Therefore, the enactment of the Cooperatives Act can be an important stepping stone for implementing rural policy. The Cooperatives Act has made three significant changes. First, cooperatives can start businesses in all fields except for financial and insurance businesses. Second, the requisites for people to establish cooperatives have been alleviated exceptionally. Third, the Cooperatives Act introduced a new cooperative organization which aims to serve the socially excluded class.
The self-help approach places rural community members at the core of the development process with two goals: to improve the quality of life within the community and to facilitate the community's capacity building. Community cooperatives contribute to accomplish those goals. One of the roles for the cooperatives is to provide products and services at competitive prices. Providing a good or service at a competitive price becomes increasingly important in some rural communities, and cooperative development processes have big impacts on the ability of community members to increase human assets and social capital.
We conducted a survey targeting rural community businesses to grasp their inclinations toward establishing cooperatives. According to the survey results, the Cooperatives Act has gained a low level of recognition, but so many of the community businesses wanted to establish cooperatives. This means that there is a possibility for many community businesses to establish cooperatives without sufficient understanding.
We suggested some policy tasks to cope with this situation. First, the central and local governments should provide rural residents with opportunities to learn about cooperatives. Second, the current legal systems and regulations about businesses and social services should be reviewed to do away with possible discrimination against new cooperatives. Third, the cooperation of cooperatives should be encouraged and facilitated in rural communities.
Researchers: Jeong-Seop Kim, Sang-Jin Ma, Mee-Bok Kim
E-mail address: jskkjs@krei.re.kr
- Next
- A Study on the Development Strategies and Output Evaluation of Korea Rural Industry Policies
- Prev
- A Study on Urban Agriculture Promotion and Multi-functionality