February, 09 , 2010

The nation's top economic policymaker Tuesday urged the Bank of Korea (BOK) not to raise its key policy rate against increasingly unfavorable economic conditions at home and abroad, including the debt crisis currently engulfing four southern European economies.Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun also said the government will continue expansionary fiscal policies for the foreseeable future to facilitate the ongoing economic rebound and increase monitoring of the increasingly unstable global financial market conditions to better cushion the domestic sector from negative external shocks.

``The Korean economy continues on a solid recovery path, but private sector activity is not strong enough to offset waning fiscal expenditures. Additionally, there is still a host of downside risks at home and abroad. Since the beginning of the year, the extent of the global uncertainty has worsened, following China's credit tightening, the strengthening of U.S. banking regulation and Greece's debt problem,'' Yoon said at the National Assembly. He has repeatedly called the withdrawal of extraordinary expansionary policies ``premature.''

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