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Kwon Oh-gyu, nominated as deputy prime minister and minister of finance and economy.
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President has chosen close allies to form ’final economic team’
President Roh Moo-hyun has nominated current Planning and Budget Minister Byun Yang-gyun as chief presidential secretary of national policy and current Planning and Budget Vice-Minister Chang Byung-wan as planning and budget minister. Chun Goon-pyo, vice-chief of the National Tax Service, was nominated to its commissioner after his predecessor Lee Ju-sung tendered his resignation last week. The newly-appointed ministers will officially begin their new positions at the end of this month after a National Assembly hearing. Park Nam-choon, senior presidential secretary for personnel affairs, said that there would be no change to economic and educational policies due to the replacement of two deputy prime ministers.Political analysts noted that influential bureaucrats trusted by President Roh have been posted at the frontline of de facto ’final economic team’ of the Roh administration. It is expected that the economic policies underway will, in consequence, gain more momentum. Kwon Oh-gyu, candidate for Deputy Prime Minister, has worked at the presidential office since the launch of the Roh administration while Byun Yang-gyun as Planning and Budget Minister, managed reform-related issues for the administration. The new economic team will have to tackle some formidable tasks. Kwon, while serving in the presidential office, was involved in the still-controversial push for real-estate policy revisions. As a consequence, experts say, there will be no concession or compromise of the basic framework of the administration’s real-estate policy, which puts its focus on strengthening ownership taxes. The new team is also expected to take a stronger stance in pushing through ongoing negotiations between South Korea and the U.S. on a free trade agreement (FTA). "The president is a strong proponent of the FTA with the U.S.," said an official of the Ministry of Finance and Economy. "Any new Deputy Prime Minister will have to follow his policy, and since Kwon is an advocate of an open-door policy, the pace can now be accelerated." As for how the team will handle the nation’s economic state, both Kwon and Byun worked at the Economic Planning Board, which was later integrated into the Ministry of Finance and Economy, during a period of economic boom in 1970-80s. Their ability to sustain the national economy may be put to the test as signs of recession have recently appeared. The economic policies of the participatory government have emphasized distribution and growth; Kwon and Byun are believed to focus on these two values. Outsider opinions differ as to whether the related ministries will take measures to boost the economy, but according to the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the possibility is low because the incumbent government has refused to perform what it calls artificially sustaining the national economy.
