▲ President Yoon Suk-yeol (R) and ministers attend the first emergency meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on July 8, 2022, to come up with measures to tame surging inflation as part of efforts to improve people's livelihoods. (Yonhap)

Yoon-economy

Yoon presides over 1st meeting of people's livelihood issues

SEOUL, July 8 (Yonhap) -- President Yoon Suk-yeol presided over a meeting focused on people's livelihood issues on Friday, calling for all-out efforts to help ordinary citizens cope with the economic crisis.

The meeting was held three days after the president told a Cabinet session he would personally take care of people's livelihood issues and preside over a weekly "emergency economic and public livelihood meeting."

"As the economy suffers, the people who are hit the hardest are ordinary citizens and vulnerable groups," Yoon said during the meeting at the presidential office. "The government must stabilize people's livelihoods as a matter of life and death."

The meeting was attended by ministers and vice ministers from 12 economy-related government departments, including the finance, science and interior ministries.

Yoon underscored his commitment to restructuring expenditures in the public sector to secure more finances for vulnerable groups, including for their fuel, food and daily necessities.

He also called for actively controlling supply and demand and aggressively increasing imports to help stabilize the cost of living.

"To prepare for the continued and worsening situation of high oil prices, we will move to expand the flexible tax rate limit on fuel taxes so that it will be possible to further lower fuel taxes at the right time," Yoon said.

"We are currently in an emergency. I ask you to come up with all possible measures," he added.

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