The government will step up efforts to restructure the manufacturing industry and reinvigorate the sagging corporate sector, officials said Thursday.

Industry Ministry officials said the government will seek industry-wide reorganization after the National Assembly passes a reform bill aimed at helping firms to sell or purchase businesses.

“The ministry will move fast to support companies to fasten their business restructuring with the legislation of relevant law,” Industry Minister Joo Hyung-hwan said.


The minister revealed these plans during a breakfast meeting in Seoul with CEOs of the nation’s top 30 conglomerates, including Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor.

The ministry has developed guidelines to diagnose the oversupply of an industry so as to help companies in the sector seek deals.

Industry watchers said that overcrowded industries such as steel, petrochemicals and shipbuilding, could be a target of the government’s industry restructuring drive.

The new industry minister has put priority on the revitalization of the corporate sector, given the alarm bells that have been set off in the Korean economy since the start of this year.

The nation’s outbound shipments, a key driver for growth, plunged 18.5 percent in January from a year earlier, marking the largest year-on-year drop in more than six years.

The plunge in exports was attributed to nose-diving oil prices and falling demand from China, the nation’s biggest export market.

On top of falling exports, domestic consumption also seems to be losing steam, with the country’s consumer price index growing less than 1 percent for the first time in three months.

Given these factors, the ministry organized a meeting with the business community to listen to their challenges and discuss solutions together.

At the meeting, corporate leaders asked Minister Joo to ease regulations that keep them from nurturing new businesses in some sectors such as energy and the Internet of Things.

“It is time for the government to shift gears in its economic policy to the supply side by creating new businesses and new technologies beyond the massive economic stimulus package (for a short-term boost in demand),’’ said Lee Seung-cheol, the vice chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, the nation’s biggest business lobbying group.

His remarks came one day after the government announced a set of pump-priming policies to rekindle consumer confidence and exports. It plans to inject a combined 21 trillion won ($17.4 billion) into the economy in the first quarter and to extend a consumption tax-cut program on passenger cars. To bolster domestic demand, the program will be extended to June. It was supposed to end last December.

By Seo Jee-yeon (jyseo@heraldcorp.com)