Korean leader takes centre stage

By Chris Daniels

He may not have the trappings and hangers-on of a Bill Clinton, but Auckland was not left totally without presidential style yesterday, playing host to South Korea's Kim Dae-jung.

Mr Kim is the first South Korean head of state to come to New Zealand in more than three decades.

As part of an official state visit after the weekend's Apec conference, he met business and Korean community leaders yesterday, before flying to Wellington.

Seen by many as an Asian Nelson Mandela, Mr Kim was sentenced to death by a military court for sedition in 1980. He had the sentence commuted to life imprisonment and was released in 1983.

In the two years since becoming President, he has restructured the economy and introduced democratic reforms.

Speaking to a lunch meeting of the Korea-New Zealand Business Council, Mr Kim said his country was opening up to competition and attracting billions of dollars in international investment.

"Competition for industrial information is as fierce as the Cold War of the recent past," he said. "Industrial competition is being waged in all directions among all countries of the world."

But the free market had limits for the leader of New Zealand's sixth biggest trading partner, as he showed yesterday in emphasising a need for "good-faith competition."

"Fair competition should be encouraged, but competition for competition's sake should be discouraged."

The Asian crisis hit New Zealand exports to Korea hard. They fell 26 per cent last year.

Businessman Colin Giltrap (importer of Hyundai cars), senior diplomat Richard Nottage, Korean deer velvet entrepreneur Charlie Lee and former Business Council chairman Bill Cunningham were all given awards by Korean Commerce Minister Chung Duck-Koo.