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On 7 March of this year President Roh Moo Hyun announced in Cairo that Korea will have to open its legal services market and that current market participants will have to compete in the liberalized market. He added that those work diligently in such a market will succeed and those who cannot adapt in such market will fail.
President Roh's vision is consistent with Korea 's long-term development goal of becoming the logistics and financial hub of North East Asia . In order to achieve this goal the liberalization of both financial and legal services is an absolute prerequisite for Korea to remain competitive and attractive to foreign investment in North East Asia .
Legal services are an essential component in the facilitation of all trade and investment flows. International investors are attracted by markets in which they can be advised by a single international law firm of their choice with multi-jurisdictional capacity, thereby avoiding the burden of conducting business through various law firms.
The operation of foreign law firms in various North East Asian countries such as Japan , Hong Kong and China has already enhanced the development of these countries' legal markets via skills transference to local law firms and the Government of each country. The transference can be of international best practices, forms, legal concepts and knowledge. Such skill transference is difficult to achieve where foreign lawyers are not able to enter into partnership with or employ local lawyers. Yet such transfer is necessary if the domestic legal profession is to keep pace with the globalization of the legal services sector.
Korea is the last country in North East Asia and one of the last countries in the world to even partially liberalize its legal services sector. It is surprising to find that even North Korea allows foreign law firms to operate in its territories. Korea's current offer to the WTO on the liberalization of the legal services, which allows foreign law firms to set up branches in Korea but restricts employment of Korean lawyers or the establishment of partnerships with Korean law firms, runs contrary to the spirit of what Korea wants to achieve in the North East Asia region. EUCCK's recommendation on legal services is therefore the unrestricted opening of Korea 's legal services market.
At the Hong Kong WTO discussions in December 2005, a timetable was agreed with respect to the legal services sector-the Korean government now has until October of 2006 to amend its WTO offer on legal services. It is therefore imperative that the Korean government amends its offer to the WTO by this deadline so that the Korean legal services market is fully liberalized, as the partial opening of the legal services market will place Korea behind Japan, Hong Kong, China and even North Korea, and will therefore hinder the Korea's pursuit to become the logistics and financial centre of North East Asia
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