Lee Jae-myung, the newly elected president of South Korea, announced the priority on recovering the nation’s economy following his first cabinet meeting, with more challenges expected to come.
Last Wednesday, Lee secured the votes of 49.3%, ahead of his rival, Kim Moon-soo, who received only 41.3%. One of Lee’s first duties now is to fill his cabinet and the president office that was left without any official or equipment as they were confiscated for investigation relating to martial law. So far, he only nominated Kim Min-seok to be his prime minister.
Lee is now working with the cabinet’s members from the caretaker government to form an emergency package, moving to fulfill his top campaign and vow of recovering the economy from the stagnation. He is expecting to immediately roll out a $22 billion stimulus package to boost growth after the central bank cut its GDP expansion forecast from 1.5% to 0.8%.
Kim Min-seok stated that this issue will be very difficult to solve due the current economic situation of South Korea being in a worse position than during the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Moreover, there are also the U.S. tariffs that will significantly affect the nation’s export.
Besides the economy and the U.S. tariff, Lee would also have to heal the nation’s reputation caused by the martial law attempt. Analysts stated these issues may be the scariest challenges South Korea leaders have ever faced in decades.
