SEJONG -- The government said Monday that it will continue its efforts to realign budget spending in a way to tackle the country's chronic low birth rate, boost job creation and facilitate innovative growth.
"The government will focus on the three key policies by improving the country's overall budget spending scheme," Deputy Finance Minister Kim Yong-jin said in a policy meeting.
Kim said government agencies are urged to actively respond to changes in policy implementation and to do more for deregulation.
The finance ministry said earlier it will expand government spending in four key sectors -- boosting job creation for young people, promoting innovative growth, strengthening the country's social security system, and overcoming the low birthrate and the aging society -- that are critical for sustainable growth.
(Yonhap)
It will also streamline all subsidy programs and remove redundant plans in order to increase efficiency in state budget spending.
The ministry said it would raise the growth of its budget spending to better cope with a series of chronic problems, such as the low birthrate and low economic participation by women.
According to the ministry, the growth of budget spending is set at 7.1 percent for 2018 and 5.7 percent for 2019. During the 2020-21 period, the expansion rate is set in the roughly low 5 percent range.
Youth unemployment has been worsening due to structural changes in the industrial, educational and labor sectors, and because of lower demand for new workers.
President Moon Jae-in called for an all-out effort to create new quality jobs for young people and said the country's high youth jobless rate is a national disaster.
Data showed that South Korea's total fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime -- stood at a record low of 1.05 in 2017, compared with 1.65 in 1993.
A growing number of South Koreans have fewer babies, due mainly to financial constraints amid a prolonged economic slowdown.(Yonhap)