Lee calls for measures to stabilize prices
President Lee Jae Myung speaks at a meeting with his senior secretaries and aides at the presidential office in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap
President Lee Jae Myung instructed his aides Thursday to come up with measures to stabilize prices and ease people's financial burdens.
Lee made the remark during a meeting with his senior secretaries and aides, as last month's consumer prices rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier, missing the Bank of Korea's 2 percent target for the third consecutive month.
"As perceived inflation has risen recently, it is placing a considerable burden on people's livelihoods," he said during the meeting at the presidential office.
"I ask relevant ministries to thoroughly inspect the supply-demand situation of key consumer items and preemptively mobilize policy measures to stabilize prices."
Lee again urged his aides to check for cases where prices are raised through unfair fixing or unfair profits are made by abusing monopolistic power.
Despite difficult conditions at home and abroad, Lee said the country's exports have given hope to the people, with the annual total expected to hit a record high $700 billion this year.
"This is thanks to our businesspeople and workers who have gathered their strengths to develop products and open new markets without bowing to the wave of protectionism, as well as the efforts of public officials who supported that," he said.
Lee stressed the need to nurture cutting-edge industries at a time of continued trade uncertainties, using practical trade policies centered on the national interest.
He also called for efforts to diversify export routes and widen the "economic territory" through cooperation with emerging and developing countries grouped under the "Global South."