By Kim Hyo-jin
President Park Geun-hye will deliver a speech at the National Assembly, Monday, to outline the government’s budget for the next year, Cheong Wa Dae said Sunday.
This will mark her fourth budgetary speech since inauguration in 2013.
“Park has laid out a roadmap of state management every year during a regular session of the National Assembly with a budgetary speech,” presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk told reporters.
“It reflects her will to create a new culture of actively seeking parliamentary cooperation on a visit to the legislature.”
The speech is expected to signify Park’s drive to urge the Assembly to work on the passage of economic and budget bills, redirecting its focus from a snowballing scandal surrounding non-profit foundations allegedly controlled by Park’s longtime confidant Choi Sun-sil.
Park is likely to call for parliamentary cooperation and national unity while stressing economic stagnation and security challenges caused by North Korea’s nuclear test and missile provocations.
Along with support for the 2017 government budget, the President is expected to request a prompt passage of bills on labor reform, deregulation and the development of the services industry.
Park has urged the Assembly to reconsider a set of bills, which she views as crucial in creating jobs, nurturing new industries and spurring growth.
The reform bills were scrapped in the previous Assembly as the opposition parties expressed concern about endangering job stability and the possibility of conglomerates taking advantage of the regulations to execute corporate takeovers.
The ruling Saenuri Party proposed them again in the 20th Assembly but they have been stuck in negotiations between the rival parties for months.
Park, however, is not expected to touch on the allegations against Choi and the controversy over an ex-foreign minister’s memoir, cautious of the possibility of fueling political wrangling, a presidential official said.