Minister Kim Yun-duk of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on the 17th, "Because reliability is important in supply issues, I am considering delaying (the announcement of additional supply measures) a bit."
The Minister gave this answer at a full session of the Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee at the National Assembly when People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jong-uk asked about the timing of the announcement of additional dwellings supply measures.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), having said it would announce additional supply measures after home prices did not cool despite the Sept. 7 supply package to break ground on 1.35 million homes in the greater Seoul area over five years through 2030, is expected to include in the additional plan such items as reconstruction of aging government office complexes, lifting development-restricted zones (green belts), and ways to use idle sites in downtown Seoul where projects were previously pursued but halted.
With the Minister taking a cautious stance on announcing the additional plan, the timing now could be pushed from within the year to early next year.
To a question about whether consultations with the Seoul Metropolitan Government were going well that day, the Minister said, "The atmosphere is quite good," adding, "We are actively reviewing acceptance of what the city has requested." The Minister added, "We are holding regular Deputy Minister-level discussions to reach as much convergence as possible on several contentious issues."
Regarding a post that Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC) President Lee Hak-jae uploaded to social media after a presidential policy briefing, the Minister said, "We assess that there is a considerable problem," expressing the view that "it would be better if it were corrected."
Earlier, on the 12th of this month, during a policy briefing for MOLIT and others, the president asked Lee, "They say if you tuck tens of thousands of dollars in $100 bills into a book like a bookmark and take it overseas, it won't be caught—does that actually happen?" and rebuked Lee when he failed to answer properly.
In response, on the 14th, Lee posted on social media a message about "whether 'bookmark dollars' are detected," saying, "Even employees who have worked at Incheon Airport for 30 years would not know this unless they work in security screening," and that "the fact that 'if you hide dollars in a bookmark, they are not detected' has been made known to the whole world."
The Minister said, "While this issue is indeed originally the duty of the Korea Customs Service, I believe Incheon International Airport Corporation also has an obligation to bear security responsibility," adding, "We will conduct an investigation and audit into how IIAC has handled this duty up to now and report to the National Assembly afterward."