The transition team of President-elect Park Geun-hye will receive policy briefings from the national tax agency and the intelligence body Saturday, the second day of a key process to formulate a policy road map for the next government.
The National Tax Service (NTS) and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) are scheduled to brief the transition team in the morning, followed by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the justice ministry and the Supreme Prosecutors' Office in the afternoon.
Sources said the NTS will present measures to regularize the "underground economy," referring to undetected business and economic activities, including many illegal transactions. The government has been unable to regulate and impose taxes on such businesses, and Park, in one of her major campaign pledges, vowed to better police the underground economy in an apparent bid to generate more state revenue and meet the expected rise in welfare spending.
The NIS, according to sources, will likely talk about its restructuring.
Briefings by the justice ministry and the top prosecutors' office will likely focus on prosecution reform, sources said. Park had pledged to abolish the prosecution's central investigation unit, which has been accused of harboring political bias in its handling of high-profile cases, and also to reduce prosecutors' investigative powers.
The knowledge economy ministry could discuss developing mid-sized corporations, ensuring the safety of nuclear power plants and long-term energy supply measures, sources said.
After the first day of policy reporting sessions Friday, the transition team said it would not give media briefings on the specifics of the meetings so as not to cause "unnecessary policy confusion." The decision sparked criticism that the transition team was discounting the people's right to know. (Yonhap News)