President Lee lays out policy tasks for next five years

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

President Lee Jae Myung on Wednesday laid out a sweeping five-year policy agenda, detailing 123 national tasks ranging from constitutional reform to industrial growth and market fairness. The announcement came 70 days after he took office without a transition committee following an early presidential election. 

The State Affairs Planning Committee presented the plan at the Blue House’s State Guest House, naming constitutional revision as the top priority. It pledged to build a “new governance system that embodies the spirit of popular sovereignty.” 

Reforms targeting concentrated power in the prosecution, police and Board of Audit and Inspection, measures to prevent military interference in politics, and changes to the governance of public broadcasters were placed prominently, signaling a strong reform drive.

The agenda also calls for innovation in fiscal management to make state governance more efficient, as well as rationalizing regulations to stabilize livelihoods and boost domestic demand.

On inter-Korean policy, the government aims to shift toward reconciliation and cooperation, institutionalizing multifaceted exchanges and peaceful coexistence to turn “the Korean Peninsula risk into the Korean Peninsula premium.” It pledges to enhance the South Korea-U.S. alliance while diversifying diplomacy, pursuing denuclearization, and building a sustainable peace regime.

Hong Hyun-ik, head of the committee’s foreign and security policy division, highlighted plans to advance the “three-axis defense system” and transfer wartime operational control during Lee’s term.  

Defense plans include building elite capabilities against North Korea’s nuclear, missile and cyber threats, reforming the military to meet demographic challenges, and making South Korea one of the world’s top four defense exporters. 

The economic blueprint identifies AI, bio, energy transition, semiconductors and secondary batteries as strategic growth sectors. Tasks include creating an independent AI ecosystem, developing next-generation semiconductors, expanding public data access, setting up “mega free zones” with no regulations for high-tech industries, and launching a 100 trillion won ($72.6 billion) National Growth Fund. Other proposals aim to elevate agriculture and fisheries to national strategic status, introduce a rural basic income, expand the K-content market to 300 trillion won, and attract 30 million tourists annually. 

The agenda also emphasizes fair markets, balanced development and stronger social safety nets. Measures include a one-strike-out rule for unfair trading in capital markets, building a fair and mutually beneficial platform ecosystem, introducing a Korean-style discovery process to ease litigation burdens for SMEs, and stricter penalties for technology theft.

Plans to complete the Sejong administrative capital, begin the second phase of public institution relocations, and adjust the national-to-local tax ratio to 7:3 are also included.  

Social policies range from enacting a Basic Life Safety Act and strengthening state responsibility for industrial accident prevention, to improving regional, essential and public health care, expanding coverage for caregiving, diabetes, rare diseases and mental illnesses, and gradually applying labor laws to workplaces with fewer than five employees.  

The government will also push the so-called “Yellow Envelope Law” and codify equal pay for work of equal value.

The administration’s five-year policy blueprint is organized in a sequential framework of a national vision, three governing principles, five national goals and 123 national tasks, according to the announcement on Wednesday.

The administration’s framework includes a national vision — “a nation where the people are the owners, a Korea where everyone is happy together” — supported by three governing principles and five national goals. Twelve “priority strategic tasks” will receive concentrated policy resources, including raising the Kospi to 5,000, becoming one of the top three AI powers, and tackling the demographic crisis. 

The government plans to invest 210 trillion won over five years, financed through revenue growth and tighter spending. A new National Future Strategy Committee will oversee and coordinate the rollout.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom staff.

BY JEONG JAE-HONG,LIM JEONG-WON [[email protected]]