KARP held a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Social Cooperative

The Korea Association of Retired Persons (KARP, Representative: Juch Myong-Yong) held a board meeting of the Social Cooperative on the 22nd at its office in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. The meeting was attended by board members Juch Myong-Yong, Kim Il-Soo, Lee Chang-Jin, Son Hye-Soo, and Kim Hwi-Sook, with the Association’s full-time policy specialists joining as observers.

At the meeting, Director Kim Il-Soo, who had recently returned from a business trip to Mongolia, reported on the “feasibility of importing Mongolian black goat meat and developing a local goat-raising business.” Kim noted, “With the ban on dog meat, the demand for black goat meat is increasing, and the business outlook appears favorable,” and proposed that KARP move forward with the project. The board decided to conduct more in-depth discussions before making a final decision on whether to pursue the project.

Prior to this, former Busan Chapter Representative Kim Tae-Wook presented on KARP’s current status and strategic goals. Kim identified the lack of volunteer spirit among incoming members as the Association’s most pressing problem. As a remedy, he stressed the need to shift members’ mindsets while expanding social participation, driving organizational innovation, ensuring financial independence, and promoting generational integration.

He proposed turning seniors’ experiences into social assets by building job and volunteer platforms, developing career donation and mentoring programs, and advancing community-based public projects. He also emphasized the need to modernize the Association’s operations through digital transformation of membership accounting, adopting an autonomous chapter management system with capacity building, and expanding participation of the pre-retirement generation.

Furthermore, to strengthen policy and financial foundations, he called for expanding government and municipal commissioned projects and promoting profit-making initiatives through the Social Cooperative. He also highlighted the importance of building public-private cooperation networks and operating policy forums.