Transition committee not considering setup of finance ministry

The presidential transition committee of President-elect Park Geun-hye will likely not set up a finance ministry as demanded by the financial and political sectors in its government reorganization plan.

Park did not pledge to form such a ministry in her campaign, and the committee has more urgent matters to tend to, such as the creation of a separate body exclusively for science and technology tentatively named the Future, Science and Technology Ministry.

A leading committee member said Monday, "No one on the transition committee spoke of setting up a finance ministry, and this was never a pledge by President-elect Park." Another member said, "Priority should be on closely diagnosing existing financial policies."

Setting up a finance ministry would require combining the Financial Services Commission with the international financial policy function of the Strategy and Finance Ministry. The need for the finance ministry had been consistently raised by critics, who said the current system that separates domestic and international financial policies was inefficient in dealing with the 2008 global financial crisis. Park`s negative stance in building a divider in government function also supported this claim.

Nevertheless, the transition committee now considers that the synergy effects of combining domestic and international financial functions could be lower than expected. Instead, it will closely examine the advantages and disadvantages of separating the consumer financial protection function from the Financial Supervisory Service to judge the validity of a double financial supervisory model.

january@donga.com