43% Disappointed With MBnomics

President Lee Myung-bak has not lived up to people's expectations on the economy during his first year in office, a survey revealed Monday.

A telephone survey of 1,000 adults carried out by the Hankook Ilbo, a sister paper of The Korea Times, showed that the biggest perceived failure of the Lee administration, which marks its first anniversary Wednesday, is its economic policy, often dubbed ``MBnomics.''

When asked to pick where the Lee administration committed its biggest blunder over the past year, 43.3 percent of respondents chose the economy, followed by inter-Korean relations at 26.7 percent and political affairs at 24 percent.

Given that Lee, a former CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, was elected president on the promise of reinvigorating the economy with a campaign pledge of 7 percent economic growth, the figure reveals people's disappointment in his broken promises, the survey said.

Many respondents, however, showed strong support for new Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun's economic team.

A former chairman of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), Yoon took office on Feb. 10 as the country's top economic policymaker, replacing Kang Man-soo.

Fifty percent of those surveyed answered that Yoon's team will either do an excellent job or perform relatively well.

Thirty-four percent showed distrust in the new economic team with 4.1 percent saying they believe the performance of the new team will be very disappointing.

Few expect the sluggish economy to improve in the near future, the survey said ― less than one percent of people believe that the economy will bottom out in the first half of the year.

More than 23 percent of respondents predicted that the economy will start to recover in the first half of next year, followed by 20.8 percent in the second half of 2010 and 15.4 percent in 2011.

When asked what should be the Lee administration's top priority for economic revival, 54 percent picked the expansion of the ``job sharing'' policy, followed by corporate restructuring at 14.4 percent, deregulation of real estate at 11.4 percent and tax cuts, at 6.5 percent, the survey said.

Korea Times intern Lee Tae-hoon contributed to this article.