300,000 New Households to Be Built in 1st Half of the Year

The government decided to decrease the Health Insurance charge in the first half of the year. Also, it will take measures to prevent acute rise in educational expenses such as school and private tutoring tuitions.

To ease the housing crisis, 300,000 houses are to be constructed by the first half of the year, and housing provision to be centralized in the metropolitan area.

The government called for a meeting of ministers at the Chong Wa Dae on the 16th, and President Kim Dae-Jung presided to prepare successful measures after the ones announced in the press interview on the 14th.

The government decided to depreciate the possible public utility charges in order to support stabilization of the price increase within a 3 percent range. In order to create such effects, the Health Insurance charge is to be temporarily frozen at last year’s level, and to be reduced within the year’s first half following authorization.

In order to stabilize educational expenses such as tuitions, Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development is to hold conferences with university presidents and the superintendents of education within the month, and to prepare stabilization measures and survey conditions of national school tuitions in February.

In total of 550,000 houses, 200,000 public and 350,000 private residences are to be constructed throughout the year to resolve the housing crisis, and 300,000 housings are to be completed within the first half of the year. Out of the total number, 300,000 housings will be provided in the metropolitan area to relax the localization of the residential crisis. Including 33,000 housings just in the metropolitan area, a total of 52,500 national rental residences are to be constructed as the solution for the lower income bracket residential stabilization, and a total of 1 trillion won is to be provided.

The government decided to spend over 40 percent of the juvenile unemployment measure budget in the year’s first quarter, in which juvenile unemployment rate is expected to rise, to make available 120,000 job openings. Also, a synthetic employment information database, which provides various information for juvenile employment, is to be established by year 2003.

Children’s welfare program is to be expanded to increase gratuitous childcare numbers at the age of 5 from last year’s 15,000 to 87,000 this year. Furthermore, self-support program participants will increase from 80,000 to 330,000.

President Kim pointed out at the day’s conference, "Right now, what concerns the citizens the most is price, housing, and unemployment," and ordered counter measures. He also emphasized, "Until now, economic growth and big 4 reforms have been the center of attention, but it is time to focus on the middle class and the common people."

Joong-Hyun Park sanjuck@donga.com · ysmo@donga.com