4th Market Economy Speech Contest

□ Eligibility: Anyone interested in the market economy may apply (※ group participation is not allowed)

□ How to Participate:

1. Online manuscript submission

- Submission period: Monday, December 22, 2025, 9:00 AM – Thursday, January 22, 2026, deadline at 5:30 PM

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Application link (click)

-> Scheduled to open at 9:00 AM on December 22

※ Please make sure to enter your contact number and email address accurately when applying.

- Manuscript format: approximately 1,000 characters (excluding spaces)

2. First-round announcement

- Announcement date: Monday, January 26, 2026, 5:30 PM

- Those who pass the first round will be notified individually

3. Offline Speech Contest

- Date and time: Wednesday, February 11, 2026, 1:30 PM

- Venue: Pureun Hall, Center for Free Enterprise (CFE) (5F Pureun Hall, Urban 322, 8 Yangpyeong-ro 25-gil, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul)

- Details: Winners will be announced and the award ceremony will be held on the day of the finals

※ The speech contest will be filmed on-site that day, and videos of the winners will later be uploaded to the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE) website and YouTube channel.

※ Participants may freely give their presentations using a tablet or printed materials placed on the podium.

※ Wearing a mask and using a pseudonym during the presentation are not allowed.

□ Topic

- Market economy issues embedded throughout our daily lives

* Example topics

The need to protect property rights and tasks for improvement

Problems with proposals to restrict late-night delivery (12 AM–5 AM) and solutions for balancing labor and consumer interests

The Fair Trade Commission’s excessive imposition of fines on large platforms and its dampening effects on consumers and innovation

Why the mandatory retirement age system should be abolished

Practical ways to reduce government spending

Problems with protectionism and ways to address them

An analysis of consumer harm caused by moves to strengthen regulation of telemedicine platforms

The benefits of privatization and ways to implement it

The need to ease greenbelt regulations and directions for improvement

The risks that stronger AI and data regulation pose to the competitiveness of Korean firms

Measures to stabilize the value of money

The need to relax carbon neutrality targets and ways to improve them

The inefficiency of expanding the public sector, as seen in the failure of local government delivery apps

Solutions for increasing labor market flexibility

Mandatory fair-value rules for mergers of listed companies: regulation that undermines capital market autonomy and flexibility in restructuring

Ways to ease regulations to strengthen corporate competitiveness

How expanded government price controls (electricity, gas, taxi fares) distort market signals

The need to introduce flexible work arrangements and ways to implement them

□ Awards (prize money will be paid after tax deduction)

- Grand Prize: 0 winner(s) (certificate and KRW 1,000,000)

- Excellence Award: 0 winner(s) (certificate and KRW 500,000)

- Merit Award: 0 winner(s) (certificate and KRW 300,000)

※ All winners will also receive books published by the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE) as additional prizes.

□ Other Information

1. User traffic increases starting the day before the deadline. Please register at least one hour before the deadline.

2. Submissions must follow the application format.

3. In the case of duplicate submissions, the last submitted Op-Ed will be regarded as the final version.

4. Submitted entries cannot be modified or deleted.

5. Copyright for all submitted works belongs to the Center for Free Enterprise (CFE).

6. If a submitted work plagiarizes a previous winning work or plagiarizes/misappropriates another person’s work, the award may be revoked even after selection, and all legal responsibility lies with the applicant.

7. The personal information of applicants will be collected and retained for awarding, prize delivery, and newsletter distribution.

8. Winners will be asked to provide personal information (such as their resident registration number) for tax reporting at the time of the award, and prize money will be paid after withholding tax.

9. Certificates will be provided in PDF format, and physical certificates will be issued only once upon request. Please note that reissuance of physical certificates is not possible.

□ Inquiries: Researcher Ho-jun Wang T) 02-3774-5050 E) whj@cfe.org

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Original title: 제4회 시장경제 스피치 대회

Author: Center for Free Enterprise (CFE)

Date: 2025-12-12

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=notice&pn=2&idx=28394