Prime Minister Jeong's 4th Thursday Dialogue... "Will Ensure Bold Regulatory Reform and Proactive Administration by Public Officials"

Prime Minister Jeong Sye-kyun

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun held the 4th Thursday Dialogue on the 21st at the Prime Minister's Official Residence, Samcheongdang, in Seoul, together with experts in the fields of economy, industry, and employment, the Prime Minister's Office announced.

This Thursday Dialogue, themed "Preparing for a New Normal After COVID-19," is the fourth in a series of six relay meetings. Following last week's session with experts in quarantine and healthcare, this meeting was arranged to exchange opinions with experts in the economy, industry, and employment sectors.

Prime Minister Chung stated, "Due to the COVID-19 crisis, the world is currently in an economic war situation. Our economy is also showing warning signs such as a sharp decline in exports, the spread of crises in the service and manufacturing industries, and the risk of unemployment for self-employed individuals and workers." He emphasized a bold shift toward the digital economy as a measure to overcome the COVID-19 crisis.

He particularly said, "We will actively pursue regulatory reforms and proactive administration by public officials to foster new growth industries such as the Korean New Deal, including digital infrastructure construction and bio-health."

Furthermore, he mentioned, "The success of the post-COVID era depends on establishing social safety nets," adding, "To prevent the difficulties of vulnerable groups from worsening due to the economic crisis, preparing a dual safety net of employment security and social welfare safety nets is one of the two main pillars, along with the Korean New Deal, to overcome the COVID-19 economic crisis."

Today's Thursday Dialogue began with a presentation titled "The Economy After COVID-19 from the Perspective of Financial Markets" by Kim Hak-gyun, Head of the Research Center at Shin Young Securities.

Director Kim forecasted, "The economy after COVID-19 will show a slower recovery pace than during the 2008 financial crisis under the low-growth trend observed since 2011," and added, "The service industry and self-employed sectors, which were already vulnerable, will be particularly hard hit."

He continued, "Expansionary fiscal policy can increase national debt and reduce the role of the private sector, and the benchmark for judging the appropriateness of fiscal policy is whether interest rates rise in the bond market," emphasizing this point.

He also said, "To ensure that productivity improvements from digital innovation technologies lead to job creation, it is necessary to learn from the U.S. cases such as the Amazon fear index, which reflects the encroachment of leading 4th Industrial Revolution companies on existing businesses, and labor shortages caused by mismatches between new technologies and education."

Following this, Kim In-cheol, Head of the Industrial Policy Research Division at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, stated, "Minimizing the initial shock is a key prerequisite for an orderly recovery," and expressed, "In the short term, urgent support for vulnerable sectors and timely fiscal policy by the government are important, and in the mid-to-long term, it is necessary to elevate regulatory innovation to a national agenda while utilizing industrial digitalization as a core opportunity."

The Thursday Dialogue is broadcast live from the beginning to the presentations via the Prime Minister's Office Facebook and KTV (YouTube, Twitter), and is also rebroadcast on KTV. The 5th Thursday Dialogue (social, cultural, and educational fields) will be held on the 28th at 4 p.m.

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