Roh Says “Stabilizing Housing Price is the Priority”

Korean President Roh Moo-hyun revealed his measure to stabilize housing prices on August 23. “Some people have raised doubts on the government’s measure on high housing prices. However, I will address the problem myself as a matter of primary concerns at the cost of any political interests,” he said.

At a Cabinet meeting held at Cheong Wa Dae on the same day, he assured, “From now on, long-term basic policies including housing prices will be strictly discussed and determined in meetings presided by the president, such as a National Economic Advisory Council meeting.”

As for his comment, a high-ranking source in Cheong Wa Dae Office of National Policy said, “Critics argue that the real estate policy is regressing since the government has given permission for the resale of home ownership and narrowed down on the range of Aggregate Land Tax liable for taxation. But we are going to prove that is not true. The government will pursue its policies even with difficulties. We are not going back to the days before the government rolled out a package of anti-speculation measures on October 29.”

President Roh also unveiled his plan that Seoul will not come up with measures to boost housing sectors and will carry out early measures to invest in social overhead capital in order to activate the construction business market.

Roh argued, “We need to find out whether overheated competition in real estate is slowing down or if the construction business market is dwindling.” “Considering the importance of housing sectors in the construction industry’s gross domestic product (GDP), it is impossible to boost construction sectors only by stimulating housing sectors.”

“It is necessary to deal with the dull construction industry with stabilized measures since the construction industry is very burdensome to the economy,” the president ordered, urging government authorities to focus on creating more demand for social overhead capital investment in a bid to expand people’s welfare.

Jung-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com