Ministries Unveil Projects for 2008

Starting next year, the government will allow the construction of apartments higher than 30 stories in the center of apartment complexes built in general residential areas. The change will reshape the skylines of Korean apartment complexes from the current horizontal lines to curves.

The 11 organizations responsible for policy funding support for small and medium businesses will be unified into the Small and Medium Business Administration, allowing the businesses to receive support from the government through a one-stop service, starting next year.

Six government ministries, including the Ministry of Land, Transfer and Maritime Affairs, reported the plans at the first state affairs meeting presided over by President Lee Myung-bak yesterday at Cheong Wa Dae.

According to the Land Ministry’s plan for land usage improvement, the ministry will seek to diversify the country’s urban skylines, by building fewer apartment buildings for the same floor space, reducing stories of apartments built in the outer parts of an apartment complex and building high-rises in the center of the complex.

Currently, apartment buildings cannot exceed 15 stories within 200 percent of the floor space index in Seoul’s general residential areas.

The Ministry of Knowledge and Economy announced its plan to merge and adjust 22 supporting projects for small and medium businesses, which have been run by the ministry and the Small and Medium Business Administration, into six and make the administration the sole authority to manage policy funding for SMEs.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology released its plan to select 88 public boarding high schools and 20 specialized “meister” high schools this year and grant 2.5-5 billion won to each of them. Also, it will expand open recruitment of principals for these schools.

The Ministry of Environment said that it would ensure the stable production of drinking water by diversifying water sources to keep drinking water, which is directly related to national health, clean.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare disclosed its plan to create some 80,000 jobs in the health and welfare sectors, including 50,000 caregiver jobs for the sick elderly, 13,000 jobs in the private sector for the elderly aged 65 or more and 18,000 jobs for caregivers for children.

The Financial Services Commission said that it would review all of the 816 financial regulations registered to the Regulatory Reform Committee and address them by the year’s end by categorizing them into those to be kept, abolished, temporarily kept and abolished later.