Monday Business News

ROK mulls further tax cuts 
to prop up economy 
Agence France-Presse . Seoul 

South Korean president Lee Myung-Bak said on Sunday his administration planned further tax cuts and would expand government spending to prop up the ailing economy.
  Lee summoned key advisers and ministers to a meeting Sunday where he urged them to stem the financial crunch spilling into Asia’s fourth largest economy, his spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan said in a statement afterwards.
  South Korea is already feeling the harsh impact of the global crisis, with its stock market Friday plummeting 10.6 per cent amid massive foreign selling and growth hitting a four-year low in the third quarter.
  ‘The government’s scheme to push for additional tax cuts and expand its fiscal spending must ensure that the financial crisis will not lead to a slump in the real economy,’ the president told the meeting.
  ‘Under the current circumstances, what views foreign investors take about our economy and market is more important than anything else.’
  The president’s office did not elaborate on more tax reductions or government spending. The finance ministry would not immediately comment.
  Lee, who returned Saturday from a summit of Asian and European leaders in Beijing, used Sunday’s meeting to try to ease concerns over foreign currency and stock markets, his office said.
  He ordered the cabinet to explain more clearly government policies to foreign investors and work with the international community on follow-up measures to fight the global financial crisis.
  Data from the Financial Supervisory Service on Sunday showed foreign investors were selling local stock here at a record rate.
  The statistics, disclosed by Yonhap news agency, said investors sold a net 42.61 trillion won ($29.59b) worth of stocks this year, the highest volume since the 1992 opening of the local market.