Company Law and Industrial Exploitation

The Government-General required the governor-general’s permission to found a company, blocking the growth of Korean capital, and seized resources through the fisheries, forestry and mining ordinances.

In December 1910, just after annexation, the Government-General issued the Company Law (in force 1911). Founding a company required the governor-general’s permission, and he could dissolve a company that broke its terms. The aim was to hold back Korean-owned companies and national capital and let Japanese capital dominate Korean industry.

At the same time the Fisheries Ordinance (1911) reorganized fishing grounds around Japanese operators, the Forestry Ordinance (1911) and the Forest Survey Ordinance (1918) turned much woodland into state forest, and the Mining Ordinance (1915) handed mining rights to Japanese. Ginseng, salt and tobacco became state monopolies; the Bank of Chosen (1911) and the Chosen Industrial Bank (1918) controlled finance; and railways, roads and ports were laid out for colonial extraction and continental expansion.

With the Land Survey Project, these measures formed the framework of the colonial economy in the 1910s. The Company Law was changed to a reporting system in 1920.