By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
President Lee Myung-bak stressed the importance of his four-river improvement project, Monday, calling it an ``essential and urgent'' national task.
He also said the government will allocate greater fiscal spending next year to help low-income households and small businesses, as well as create jobs.
While presiding over an emergency economic policy meeting at the Gwachon Government Complex, south of Seoul, President Lee said the four-river development scheme is a must for Korea in the face of the rapidly changing climate and physical environment.
``Some misunderstood that the four-river project will take away money from other infrastructure schemes next year. But it is absolutely untrue because we are allocating greater state spending for other development projects. We should work hard to let the public know the truth,'' Lee said.
As one of nine major development works, a total of 18 trillion won will be spent to strengthen the capability of four main river systems ― the Han, Nakdong, Geum and Yeongsan ― across the country by building dams, reservoirs and other water-management facilities through 2012. The Ministry of Strategy and Finance expects the work to create around 280,000 new jobs.
President Lee then said the government should place top priority on generating jobs for the low-income bracket. ``The government will increase the welfare-related budget in 2010 by a larger margin than initially planned to more effectively support the socially weak and underprivileged.''
In July, the ministry said the 2010 fiscal expenditure, including state-run funds, will likely reach 298.5 trillion won, up 4.9 percent from this year. Among others, the government plans to spend a total of 82.1 trillion won to strengthen public health, social welfare and labor-related schemes, up 10.1 percent from 2009, to support President Lee's pledge to improve the livelihood of the working class, self-employed and women.
Echoing the President's remarks, Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun said the government will put more money into infrastructure development schemes. ``To ease possible concerns about shrinking infrastructure expenditure because of the four-river improvement project. We will spend more than previously planned to build roads and other social overhead capital (SOC).''
Yoon then said the government will spend a total of 6.7 trillion won for the river project next year. Of this, 3.5 trillion won will be financed by taxpayers' money, with the remaining 3.2 trillion won assumed by the Korea Water Resources Corp.
``Social welfare-related spending will increase by twice as much as other expenditures. The government will introduce a new subsidy scheme for the handicapped, provide greater childcare funding to double-income families and supply more public housing to low-income households,'' the minister stressed.
Yoon also said the government will create 550,000 new positions in the public sector against the continued sluggish private job market, while boosting defense spending to modernize the nation's armed forces and improve living conditions for soldiers.
The government plans to inject more capital into the Export Import Bank of Korea and Korea Export Insurance Corp. next year to help them extend more credits to exporters to boost outbound shipments, he said.