Kim Yong-beom, director of the Presidential Office's policy office, said on the 27th that "(President Lee Jae-myung) is likely to hold a forum to discuss ways to speed up procedures such as housing land development."
Speaking from Brasilia, Brazil, in a telephone interview with CBS Radio's "Park Sung-tae's News Show," Kim referred to the national public forum on real estate policy chaired by President Lee on the 23rd, saying, "I expect a somewhat more focused discussion at the forum to be chaired by (Prime Minister) Han Sung-sook." He added, "There are various opinions on how to strengthen the property holding tax and on what the standard for ultra-high-priced housing should be, and we are watching opinion polls and media reactions while also listening to views raised at the previous forum." He explained, "We are building our own consensus on the standard for ultra-high-priced housing."
He also said, "Constructive opinions have been raised, such as whether we should open an exit for people to put their properties on the market once the holding tax is strengthened, and whether we should ease the tax burden for those relocating to provincial areas after retirement, so we are considering ways to appropriately reflect these in policy."
He continued, "President Lee said, 'It is difficult through conventional methods; we cannot resolve the concentration in the metropolitan area overnight,'" and explained, "Because the policies already announced take considerable time starting from land development, he is likely to hold a forum to comprehensively review ways to expedite those procedures as well." He also said, "He is likely to take a helicopter and look at the metropolitan area himself to gain a better overall understanding."
Regarding measures to address single-stock leverage products, which have been criticized for causing extreme stock market volatility, he said, "We plan to review additional measures if necessary." The government has decided to implement a measure raising the basic deposit for single-stock leverage products from the existing 10 million won to 30 million won. On this, Kim said, "We expect demand to stabilize somewhat after the system improvement measures are implemented, and after that we plan to observe the effects and review additional measures again if necessary."
On the "San Francisco Artificial Intelligence (AI) Declaration" that President Lee announced in San Francisco, the United States, he assessed it as "a starting point for making Korea a hub for Asia's artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain and data centers."
