The Korea Local Administration Review

Consumer Policy jurisdictions were transferred from Ministry of Strategy andFinance to Fair Trade Commissions on March. 2007. We analyzed results afterthe transfer in two parts, whether its procedural steps were democratic and theefficiency of the content.Procedural aspects of consumer policy deserves to be evaluated as ‘democratic’in terms of time, procedures and a scope of participants in the discussion,despite some dissent opinions to the transfer.For contents of consumer policy, Presidential Committee on GovernmentInnovation and Decentralization assumes several preconditions at the time of thetransfer. Some achievements are found and others are currently in progress oraren't fulfilled.It is apparent performance to build a single network across the country forconsumer consultation which was delivered by consumer groups and Korea ConsumerAgency before. On the other hand, changing name of the Korean Fair TradeCommission and partnership agreements between the local authorities and theFair Trade Commission regional offices are underway.Nevertheless, consumer policy integration and activation of arbitrational functionis requested in the future. Also, functional connections between Fair TradeCommision and the Korean Consumer Agency is needed as well. Moreover,support for local Government's budget and local consumer administration needsto be actively pursued.