"Remove Dividers and Enhance Policy Performance" in Unison... Cabinet Members' First New Year Workshop

Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance (right), and Kim Sang-jo, Chief Presidential Secretary for Policy.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] To enhance policy achievements in the new year, the government plans to eliminate departmental barriers and establish a 'prioritize implementation, then supplement' system. To this end, incentives will be provided for strengthened interdepartmental collaboration, and measures to exempt civil servants from liability for active collaborative administration will also be considered.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance on the 12th, the government held the '2020 Cabinet Members Workshop' on the 11th at the Gwacheon National Human Resources Development Institute for Public Officials to discuss these matters.

The workshop was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Yoo Eun-hye, other cabinet members, minister-level heads of administrative agencies, and Kim Sang-jo, Chief Presidential Secretary for Policy.

The attendees, as cabinet members responsible for national governance, exchanged various opinions on the direction of '2020 national administration' and the removal of departmental barriers to achieve early policy outcomes.

In particular, as emphasized in the President’s New Year’s address on the 7th, active discussions were held on strategies, directions, tasks, and ideas to bring about 'definite changes' that allow people to feel the impact of policy achievements.

Furthermore, they shared awareness of the overall framework and direction of national governance and fiscal management, and specifically discussed ways to link budgets between departments during policy implementation and budget formulation and execution.

In the first session on national governance, Kim Sang-jo, Chief Presidential Secretary for Policy, presented on the conditions and strategies for national governance. This was followed by Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki’s presentation on tasks for innovative growth, inclusive growth, fair economy, and peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. Noh Hyung-wook, Director of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, then presented on strengthening interdepartmental policy collaboration and communication and improving the efficiency of policy execution for successful policy outcomes.

During the subsequent comprehensive and breakout discussions, participants agreed on the need for rapid and flexible policy implementation by breaking down departmental barriers, prioritizing pilot projects before supplementation, and actively operating task forces (TFs) for current issues.

Above all, they agreed to focus policy capabilities on bold regulatory reforms, professional workforce development, and comprehensive support plans, leveraging the passage of economic revitalization bills such as the Data 3 Act and the Venture Investment Promotion Act.

Following the successful outcomes of last year’s New Southern Policy, including the Korea-ASEAN and Korea-Mekong summits, this year’s focus will be on achieving results in the New Northern Policy. To expand the achievements of multilateral cooperation channels more substantially, strategic bilateral cooperation channels in fields such as science and technology, industry, and finance will be activated, and a cross-ministerial collaboration and support system will be strengthened.

In the second session on national finance, Deputy Prime Minister Hong Nam-ki enhanced the understanding of cabinet members by presenting on Korea’s fiscal structure, management, and challenges, and proposed a '3+1 fiscal management strategy' to improve fiscal performance. Following this, Minister of Employment and Labor Lee Jae-gap, Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo, and Minister of the Interior and Safety Jin Young shared cases of representative multi-ministerial joint projects currently underway in their departments and announced plans to strengthen collaborative fiscal management going forward.

In the subsequent comprehensive and breakout discussions, various measures to enhance budget collaboration, efficiency, and performance were discussed. In particular, they agreed to actively discover multi-ministerial joint projects expected to generate synergy through collaboration and to promote joint planning, integrated budgeting, and execution among departments.

Each ministry will prepare a multi-ministerial collaboration project operation plan, including optimal role allocation for common goals through prior interdepartmental coordination, adjustment of similar or overlapping projects, and measures to eliminate barriers at the execution level, and submit it along with their budget requests. The fiscal authorities will seek ways to actively consider these plans during the budget formulation process.

A government official said, "(The workshop) lasted nearly five hours, exceeding the scheduled time by more than 40 minutes due to the active participation and heated discussions of the attendees," and added, "Going forward, to ensure successful national governance through definite changes and concrete achievements, various communication meetings like this workshop will be actively organized as needed."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.