• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.30 no.3D
• /
• pp.295-302
• /
• 2010

Since the late 1990s, the BOT mode in China has been extensively used in the water sector in order to attract private investment, improve technical and operational efficiency, and expand the coverage of water services. The BOT mode has been hailed as this provides a win-win structure between the government and private players through formalized procedures and an optimal risk allocation. However, recent market analyses show that some foreign investors are reluctant to participate in the market or even retreat due to uncertainties and risks in the market. This study aims to explore various risks in the Chinese water BOT market based on the thorough literature review, fieldwork, and the case studies on the two wholly foreign-owned BOT water projects: the Chengdu No. 6 and the Shanghai Dachang Water Supply BOT projects. The research results indicate that the Chinese BOT market embraces high risks in political, institutional and legal, and financial systems. The key to a successful takeoff of the BOT mode in the Chinese water market depends on the extent to which the government will be able to remove risky factors in political, institutional and legal, and financing systems. This research outcome will provide a useful reference to the Korean construction companies which consider expanding business to overseas water markets in the form of public private partnership.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.46 no.3
• /
• pp.235-246
• /
• 2013

The importance of R&D has been recognized around the world and Korean research funding has rapidly increased in recent years. As a results, interest in strategic R&D Investment is growing in both the public and private sectors. This study was carried out to find trends in the research projects of the KIGAM since the fiscal year of 1976. The KIGAM expended 1,193.3 billion won during the 36 years from the fiscal years of 1976 to 2011, which is 1,795.8 billion won calculated using the present value in 2011 at discount rate of 5%. R&D expenditure of KIGAM increased approximately 132.9 times from 885 million won in 1976 to 117,600 million won in 2011, and about 24.1 times from 4,882 million won in 1976, as calculated using the present value in 2011. The number of research projects increased about 6.75 times, from 28 projects in 1976 to 189 projects in 2011. Based on research trend analysis over the last 36 years, the percentage of research projects by research fields were as follows: mineral resources research, 39.5%; geologic environmental research, 28.8%; geological research, 15.6%; petroleum and marine research, 12.1%; and policy research, 3.1%. The percentage of the R&D budget dedicated to each type of research were as follows: mineral resources research, 33.1%; geologic environmental research, 25.6%; geological research, 22.8%; petroleum and marine research, 15.9%; and policy research, 2.1%. Allocation of R&D investment was determined by considering the governmental priority of such research, as well as which area were most promising. Based on the research projects trends within KIGAM and analyses of its R&D, we should build our R&D portfolio in the areas of geosciences and mineral resources.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
• /
• v.32 no.4
• /
• pp.153-195
• /
• 2010

The recent global financial crisis has been the outcome of, among other things, the mismatch between institutions and the reality of the market in the current global financial system. The International financial institutions (IFIs) that were designed more than 60 years ago can no longer effectively meet the challenges posed by the current global economy. While the global financial market has become integrated like a single market, there is no international lender of last resort or global regulatory body. There also has been a rapid shift in the weight of economic power. The share of the Group of 7 (G7) countries in global gross domestic product (GDP) fell and the share of emerging market economies increased rapidly. Therefore, the tasks facing us today are: (i) to reform the IFIs -mandate, resources, management, and governance structure; (ii) to reform the system such as the international monetary system (IMS), and regulatory framework of the global financial system; and (iii) to reform global economic governance. The main focus of this paper will be the IMS reform and the role of the Group of Twenty (G20) summit meetings. The current IMS problems can be summarized as follows. First, the demand for foreign reserve accumulation has been increasing despite the movement from fixed exchange rate regimes to floating rate regimes some 40 years ago. Second, this increasing demand for foreign reserves has been concentrated in US dollar assets, especially public securities. Third, as the IMS relies too heavily on the supply of currency issued by a center country (the US), it gives an exorbitant privilege to this country, which can issue Treasury bills at the lowest possible interest rate in the international capital market. Fourth, as a related problem, the global financial system depends too heavily on the center country's ability to maintain the stability of the value of its currency and strength of its own financial system. Fifth, international capital flows have been distorted in the current IMS, from EMEs and developing countries where the productivity of capital investment is higher, to advanced economies, especially the US, where the return to capital investment is lower. Given these problems, there have been various proposals to reform the current IMS. They can be grouped into two: demand-side and supply-side reform. The key in the former is how to reduce the widespread strong demand for foreign reserve holdings among EMEs. There have been several proposals to reduce the self-insurance motivation. They include third-party insurance and the expansion of the opportunity to borrow from a global and regional reserve pool, or access to global lender of last resort (or something similar). However, the first option would be too costly. That leads us to the second option - building a stronger globalfinancial safety net. Discussions on supply-side reform of the IMS focus on how to diversify the supply of international reserve currency. The proposals include moving to a multiple currency system; increased allocation and wider use of special drawing rights (SDR); and creating a new global reserve currency. A key question is whether diversification should be encouraged among suitable existing currencies, or if it should be sought more with global reserve assets, acting as a complement or even substitute to existing ones. Each proposal has its pros and cons; they also face trade-offs between desirability and political feasibility. The transition would require close collaboration among the major players. This should include efforts at the least to strengthen policy coordination and collaboration among the major economies, and to reform the IMF to make it a more effective institution for bilateral and multilateral surveillance and as an international lender of last resort. The success on both fronts depends heavily on global economic governance reform and the role of the G20. The challenge is how to make the G20 effective. Without institutional innovations within the G20, there is a high risk that its summits will follow the path of previous summit meetings, such as G7/G8.

• Land and Housing Review
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.67-77
• /
• 2015

Now that it is the current situation that the smooth supply and demand are necessary for 2nd phase of beginning construction and stable development of Gaesung Industrial Complex, this study was willing to offer the planning criteria and model to establish the lodging for the workers in Gaesung Industrial Complex based on the agreement that both South and North Korea agreed in 2007. Regarding the plan, its standard and the alternative were reviewed considering welfare of workers, economic efficiency, technical validity, possibility of agreement and long-term development. The exclusive area per capita was calculated through Labor Standards Act of Korea and status survey of lodging for the workers provided to border line area between China and North Korea and the economic alternative based on one room for 6 persons with the public restroom was compared with that of development type based on one room for 4 persons with indoor restroom. Especially regarding the proposed site, the area with the optimized position was set by considering gradient, accessibility and convenience of development out of the area of Dongchang-ri where was agreed already and the priority of the proposed site that can keep the existing building site and provide was offered. The necessary period for whole construction was set as approximately 36 months. Regarding construction method, RC Rahmen method was selected as the optimized alternative considering the workmanship of manpower of North Korea and conditions of supply and demand of materials and cluster-type vehicle allocation plan based on 4~6 units considering the efficiency of supplying service facilities and convenient facilities along the simultaneous accommodation of 15,000 people was offered. It was analyzed that total business expenses of approximately 80~100 billion Korean Won would required though there were the difference for each alternative in the charged rental way that the development business owner develops by lending the inter-Korea Cooperation Fund and withdraws the rent by the benefit principle. The possibility of withdrawing the rent was analyzed assuming that the period of withdrawing the investment is 30 years. Especially for the operation management after moving, the establishment of the committee of operating the lodging for the workers of Gaesung Industrial Complex (tentative name) was offered with the dualized governance that the constructor takes charge of operational management, collecting fees and management of infrastructure and human resource management is delegated to North Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
• /
• v.4
• /
• pp.43-71
• /
• 1975

Operations research has developed rapidly since its origins in World War II. Practitioners of O. R. have contributed to almost every aspect of government and business. More recently, a number of operations researchers have turned their attention to library and information systems, and the author believes that significant research has resulted. It is the purpose of this essay to introduce the library audience to some of these accomplishments, to present some of the author's hypotheses on the subject of library management to which he belives O. R. has great potential, and to suggest some future research directions. Some problem areas in librianship where O. R. may play a part have been discussed and are summarized below. (1) Library location. It is usually necessary to make balance between accessibility and cost In location problems. Many mathematical methods are available for identifying the optimal locations once the balance between these two criteria has been decided. The major difficulties lie in relating cost to size and in taking future change into account when discriminating possible solutions. (2) Planning new facilities. Standard approaches to using mathematical models for simple investment decisions are well established. If the problem is one of choosing the most economical way of achieving a certain objective, one may compare th althenatives by using one of the discounted cash flow techniques. In other situations it may be necessary to use of cost-benefit approach. (3) Allocating library resources. In order to allocate the resources to best advantage the librarian needs to know how the effectiveness of the services he offers depends on the way he puts his resources. The O. R. approach to the problems is to construct a model representing effectiveness as a mathematical function of levels of different inputs(e.g., numbers of people in different jobs, acquisitions of different types, physical resources). (4) Long term planning. Resource allocation problems are generally concerned with up to one and a half years ahead. The longer term certainly offers both greater freedom of action and greater uncertainty. Thus it is difficult to generalize about long term planning problems. In other fields, however, O. R. has made a significant contribution to long range planning and it is likely to have one to make in librarianship as well. (5) Public relations. It is generally accepted that actual and potential users are too ignorant both of the range of library services provided and of how to make use of them. How should services be brought to the attention of potential users? The answer seems to lie in obtaining empirical evidence by controlled experiments in which a group of libraries participated. (6) Acquisition policy. In comparing alternative policies for acquisition of materials one needs to know the implications of each service which depends on the stock. Second is the relative importance to be ascribed to each service for each class of user. By reducing the level of the first, formal models will allow the librarian to concentrate his attention upon the value judgements which will be necessary for the second. (7) Loan policy. The approach to choosing between loan policies is much the same as the previous approach. (8) Manpower planning. For large library systems one should consider constructing models which will permit the skills necessary in the future with predictions of the skills that will be available, so as to allow informed decisions. (9) Management information system for libraries. A great deal of data can be available in libraries as a by-product of all recording activities. It is particularly tempting when procedures are computerized to make summary statistics available as a management information system. The values of information to particular decisions that may have to be taken future is best assessed in terms of a model of the relevant problem. (10) Management gaming. One of the most common uses of a management game is as a means of developing staff's to take decisions. The value of such exercises depends upon the validity of the computerized model. If the model were sufficiently simple to take the form of a mathematical equation, decision-makers would probably able to learn adequately from a graph. More complex situations require simulation models. (11) Diagnostics tools. Libraries are sufficiently complex systems that it would be useful to have available simple means of telling whether performance could be regarded as satisfactory which, if it could not, would also provide pointers to what was wrong. (12) Data banks. It would appear to be worth considering establishing a bank for certain types of data. It certain items on questionnaires were to take a standard form, a greater pool of data would de available for various analysis. (13) Effectiveness measures. The meaning of a library performance measure is not readily interpreted. Each measure must itself be assessed in relation to the corresponding measures for earlier periods of time and a standard measure that may be a corresponding measure in another library, the 'norm', the 'best practice', or user expectations.