President Park Geun-hye called on the parliament Friday to pass a set of deregulation bills to help revitalize the sagging economy.
Park has been pushing to lift or ease all but core regulations to help reinvigorate Asia’s fourth-largest economy, calling unnecessary business restrictions “our archenemy” and “cancer.”
“I ask the National Assembly to make efforts in the government’s push for deregulation reform,” Park said in a televised meeting with top officials, including Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn, and business leaders to discuss how to address deregulation.
“The last regular session of the 19th National Assembly is currently going on. However, many bills related to deregulation reform have not properly proceeded,” Park said.
The rival parties have remained deadlocked for the past few days with the main opposition party boycotting parliamentary sessions in protest against the government’s decision to reintroduce state history textbooks.
On Tuesday, the government announced that it will revise the current textbook publication system so that secondary school students can learn Korean history with national textbooks starting in the 2017 school year.
Lawmakers of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy have been staging open-air rallies since then, boycotting all parliamentary meetings.
“It is the last responsibility of the 19th National Assembly to promptly pass related bills,” Park said, noting that the passage of the bills could give a much-needed boost to the economy and create more jobs eventually.
A fourth round of meetings on deregulation comes as businesses have been urging the government to lift barriers except in areas where the laissez-faire policy is counterproductive.
The Cabinet Office said it will remove 36 unnecessary authorization guidelines and improve 77 others after conducting inspections.
“The government believes it will bring a reduction of 5.4 trillion won in costs and an 8.6 trillion won increase of sales annually through 113 authorization guidelines,” the office said in a press release.
The office said it will integrate standardized Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points. HACCP is a global guideline for the food industry to prevent safety hazards. (Yonhap)
