Moon puts fight against real estate speculation on top of key policy tasks for rest of his tenure

SEOUL, March 15 (Yonhap) -- President Moon Jae-in made clear Monday that he will place a top priority on eradicating "deep-rooted evils" related to real estate during the remainder of his tenure. He acknowledged that his liberal administration has so far focused on other measures, aimed at stabilizing the overheated housing market, including stopgap ones to address pending problems. "On the basis of that self-reflection, the government will push strongly for clearing up deep-rooted evils, associated with real estate, as a core policy task in the remaining term," he said during a weekly meeting with senior Cheong Wa Dae aides. Moon pledged to establish a fair and transparent real estate transaction order as well. His single five-year tenure ends in May next year. He even described the tasks as a way to deliver the "candlelight spirit" that displaced the Park Geun-hye government from power and led to the birth of his administration. Moon's remarks represented the latest in a series of his strongly worded messages on the issue since the revelation early this month of alleged massive speculative land purchases by officials at the Korea Land and Housing Corp. (LH), the state housing supply arm, over a few years. It has emerged as arguably the hottest political issue ahead of the April 7 mayoral by-elections in South Korea's two largest cities -- Seoul and Busan. Moon, however, called for a halt to partisan strife over the matter, saying it is a bipartisan one linked with the campaign for a more transparent and impartial society. He urged joint efforts to devise ways to bring a fundamental change to the current system, such as creating a new body tasked with overseeing illegal property transactions. The president then reiterated the importance of maintaining the drive to expand the housing supply under the initiative of the public sector. He was referring to a package of measures, announced on Feb. 4, to provide a total of 830,000 additional homes, mostly apartments, nationwide over the coming years. The policy "shouldn't be swayed under any circumstance," he said. lcd@yna.co.kr (END)