Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin urged heads of domestic research institutions to have the financial sector become the economic lifeline that selects institutional sectors with high productivity and supplies funds, asking research institutions to present the way forward with a long-term perspective.
On this day at the Korea Financial Investment Association in Yeouido, Seoul, Governor Lee held a meeting of research institution heads and said that Korea's economy is facing entrenched low growth and that it is time for an active role by finance for real growth.
Governor Lee said that to foster new growth industries, tailored funding is needed by growth stage, from corporations' startup and growth to business restructuring, and said there is a need to break away from a stability-oriented business practice, manage risks by corporate growth stage, and supply sufficient funds in a timely manner. To that end, the FSS said it will improve systems so that funds concentrated in real estate can be supplied to the innovation growth institutional sector.
Governor Lee also said that as aging changes financial demand, it should be possible to raise growth and welfare by linking it with consumption, investment, and welfare. Lee said that funds held by the elderly and tied up in real estate should be securitized through various pension and trust products and connected to consumption or investment, and said that if projects such as senior welfare housing that combines health care and housing are implemented in connection with REITs, it will help develop the capital market and improve welfare.
Korea Institute of Finance President Lee Hang-yong said that considering factors such as population decline, real estate-centered finance is not sustainable in the long term, and said that in relation not only to demographic changes but also to climate change and the extinction of provincial regions, an active role by financial companies is needed. Hyundai Research Institute President Song Won-geun suggested that to expand productive finance, measures such as revitalizing corporate venture capital (CVC) by easing the separation of banking and commerce regulations are necessary.
Kim Won-joon, head of Samsung Global Research, said that tax benefits and other measures should strengthen retirement finance to resolve the problem of old-age poverty and that the trust system should be used to activate the use of wealth by the elderly and intergenerational transfer.