President Park Geun-hye on Friday renewed calls to revitalize the South Korean economy, a day after the country’s central bank joined a global easing wave to bolster growth by cutting the key interest rate to a record low of 1.75 percent.
Park made the comments in a meeting with the prime minister and the chiefs of the parliament, the election watchdog as well as the top courts — the Supreme Court and Constitutional Court.
The session was meant to brief them on the outcome of her recent trip to four Gulf States — Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Oil-rich Mideast countries are pushing to diversify their economic portfolios ahead of the inevitable advent of a post-oil era, a development that South Korea says could offer new business opportunities for its companies in such fields as health care, nuclear reactors as well as information and communications technology.
South Korea views the potential business opportunities as the “second Middle East boom” following the first one in the 1970s, when many Korean workers sent home their hard-earned cash from sweating at construction sites in the region. The remittances made great contributions to Korea’s economic growth.
“We need to make internal preparations well to ensure the coming second Middle East boom will lead to another economic takeoff,” Park told the prime minister and the four other participants. She also asked them to play a big role in the process. (Yonhap)
