Further reforms needed to boost bourse: President Kim

President Kim said Friday that thoroughgoing implementation of reforms in the four main economic sectors is essential to boosting the local stock market. Analysts interpreted this to mean that the government is not considering separate measures to raise share prices.

While hearing reports from four senior officers of the Millennium Democratic Party (MDP) at Cheong Wa Dae, Kim was advised by Lee Sang-Su, chief special counsel to the ruling party president, to quickly buoy up the sinking stock market, according to party spokesman Kim Young-Hwan.

The president told the group that he is staking the survival of the incumbent government on the banking sector restructuring because it is his belief that failed financial sector restructuring would undermine all of the reforms in the four economic areas, making recovery difficult.

In asking the party leaders to unite around the party chairman, Kim Joong-Kwon, and develop policies capable of giving the people hope, President Kim said that he would devolve his party responsibilities to his officers as much as possible.

Earlier that day, he presided over a meeting of cabinet members in charge of economic affairs at the central government building in Kwachon. In the meeting, he said that a permanent restructuring mechanism should be established on the basis of the rudimentary framework to be shaped by next February.

Kim noted initial success in overcoming the foreign debt crisis but said that it had put both bureaucrats and businesspeople off their guard because they mistook it to be a sign of success in the overall economy. The economic policy team was called on to recognize the suffering of the people and formulate economic programs based on complete analysis of the problems that have appeared in the course of carrying out reforms so far.

Prime Minister Lee Han-Dong also attended the session, along with Finance-Economy Minister Jin Nyum, Jang Young-Cheol, chairman of the trilateral commission of labor, management and government, members of the advisory commission on national economy and the chiefs of five major private economic organizations.