Hyun vows 3-year plan by February

The government will embark on formulating a three-year plan for economic development, said Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok at a ministerial meeting yesterday.

The announcement was a follow-up to President Park Geun-hye’s call to boost the economy at her first press conference Monday.

“We will come up with a three-year economic innovation plan by February centering on strong fundamentals and dynamics, and a balance between exports and the domestic market,” Hyun said.

The minister said economic growth has been slow because of the country’s reliance on exports.

The three-year plan will include three goals in line with the president’s “474 vision”: 4 percent annual growth, per capita income of $40,000 and 70 percent employment.

The Korea Development Institute, a brainchild of the president’s father, Park Chung Hee, will play a leading role in devising the plan. The institute was responsible for Park’s five-year plans, which are widely recognized as the biggest contributor to Korea’s rapid economic growth in the 1980s.

“A hundred and twenty years ago today in the same year of the Blue Horse, the Joseon Dynasty failed to reform because it was ignorant of external conditions; 2014 should be the year we take a quantum economic leap,” Hyun said.

For even growth this year, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance decided to front-load 65.4 percent of the budget in the first two quarters.

Under the plan, the government will spend 40 percent of the 355.8 trillion won ($333 billion) budget in the first three months of the year and 25.4 percent in the following quarter, according to the ministry.

BY SONG SU-HYUN [ssh@joongang.co.kr]