Stock rally halts Korea's pension reform debate
Korea’s national pension reform appears to have been put on the back burner after a strong stock market rally bolstered the National Pension Service’s reserves and delayed the fund’s projected depletion, industry officials said Wednesday. According to the National Pension Service, its fund reserves rose from 1,036 trillion won ($684.3 billion) at the end of 2023 to 1,458 trillion won at the end of 2025. Market observers estimate that the figure had grown to 1,800 trillion won by May. The fund’s rise is largely due to the meteoric performance of the benchmark KOSPI, which ranked first among G20 nations in stock market gains. In 2025 alone, the fund delivered a record-high return of 18.82 percent. Professor Kim Yong-ha of Soonchunhyang University, a former president of the Korean Pension Association, recently told local media that if the fund posts an average annual return of 5.5 percent, its depletion date could be pushed back by 24 years, from 2071 to 2095. Pension reform has long been considered a key task for presidential administrations, but its political sensitivity has kept
