Lee renews bid to boost domestic demand

By Yoo Cheong-mo

SEOUL, Oct. 28 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday that his government will intensively focus its fiscal spending on various social infrastructure projects across the country in a bid to expedite economic recovery.

"The global economy is now under a serious threat and the international market
for Korean exports is shrinking. Thus, we'll have to intensively expand our
domestic demand in the next one to two years," said Lee during his visit to the
government of South Gyeongsang Province.
"The U.S. and Europe have been directly hit by the financial crisis. But the
ratio of our exporters' dependence on the U.S. market has fallen from over 30
percent to 11 percent over the past decade."
Lee confidently said the Korean economy will stage a recovery in one to two
years, if the nation's domestic demand can be steadily expanded.
"The government will advance the beginning of all infrastructure projects planned
across the country and embark on emergency fiscal investment projects in order to
create more jobs and hasten economic recovery," said the president.
He noted the government will unveil a list of nationwide infrastructure projects
early next month scheduled for the following years.