Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea, stated on Thursday ( Aug 29 ) that the nation’s national pension fund needs to be reformated to make it more equitable among generations and provide income security for an aging population.
According to Yoon, there had been a decline in trust in the pension system over the years and there was a need for essential and lasting reform to regain the trust of those who had in need of it in retirement.
He said,” Now is the time to fundamentally reform the national pension system, which has neither the trust of the old nor the youth.
” We will pursue changes that will persuade the junior who will be receiving pension the last and paying the longest into the account will be the youth.”
South Korea’s public pension fund, established in 1988 and currently the world’s third largest with 1, 113.5 trillion won ( US$ 833.98 billion ) in assets, is expected to be depleted by 2055 as payments start to outpace contributions from 2041.
A number of South Korean presidents have had a policy goal to reform the system, but there has n’t been much progress because of disagreements on how to approach the issue.
Yoon added that he was working on ambitious healthcare measures, noting that the emphasis is now on raising the standard of care in important fields and in remote areas.