As we end one year and look forward to another, we are allowed to express hopes and wishes for the New Year. Given what the past year bequeathed to us and the perennial uncertainties for the future, however, we cannot expect too much. Nevertheless, we still hope this year will be better than the past one.

As we step into 2015, we face daunting challenges on almost every front of our national and individual lives: from North Korea’s security threat, the economy stuck in a low-growth trap, politics that only fosters division and enmity, the population aging at the fastest pace in the world and reforms aimed at ― as President Park Geun-hye put it ― normalizing the abnormal, including the labor market and the pension plans for government workers.

It has almost become a New Year’s Day ritual that we express our hope for a major breakthrough in relations with North Korea. On the first day of 2015, we have the same hope, especially as there has been little progress in inter-Korean ties in the past few years.

President Park opened 2014 with a proclamation that Korean reunification would bring about a “bonanza.” Park certainly wanted to make unification a theme of her presidency, as she promptly established a “unification preparation committee,” of which she took the chair.

The Seoul government’s proposal to the North on Monday to hold high-level talks this month was the latest endeavor to engage Pyongyang under her “trustpolitik” approach.

The problem is that Park’s past overtures toward Pyongyang have lacked substance. Insisting that it is North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who has to change first, she did not give any indication of removing barriers to improving relations between the two sides ― like the sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its torpedo attack on the Cheonan corvette in 2010 and the demand for an apology for the shooting death of a South Korean tourist on Mount Geumgangsan in 2008.

Of course, lifting the sanctions over Cheonan and the suspension of South Korean visits to Geumgang are not matters to be dealt with lightly, but the time has come to think about their effectiveness.

It sounds hollow to speak of a bonanza from unification, which many in and outside the peninsula still regard as a very distant thing, without taking concrete steps to remove the major stumbling blocks and restore inter-Korean relations to the position that they were in years ago.

In 2015 too, one of the biggest challenges regarding North Korea will be how to seek a breakthrough in the international efforts to get rid of its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

What raises our hopes is that the North Korean leader, who now seems to have consolidated his grip on the country and who has completed the three-year mourning period for his father, may be more proactive in pushing for reform and openness.

In fact, Pyongyang has recently been reaching out toward both Japan and Russia ― which may be part of its move to make up for the strain in its relations with China ― and this could indicate Kim’s policy switch to engagement with the outside world. It would be better for him to extend this move to reopen the six-party talks.

This year marks 70 years since Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, which resulted in national division. Both Park and Kim have the obligation to move relations between the two sides ahead, which is the least they can do to compensate the 70 million Koreans for their suffering from the pain of national division forced upon them by external forces.

Park could start by taking a reconciliatory approach step by step, instead of uttering such a fancy word as reunification. She should take more proactive and bolder initiatives toward her young counterpart in the North. It is our wish that Kim also take corresponding steps to reduce tensions on the peninsula, improve relations with South Korea and the United States and take the country out of international isolation.

In 2015, Korea faces tough challenges in the economy as well. This year’s external conditions are hardly better than those of last year. There are potential crises brewing in Russia and other emerging economies due to plunging oil prices; a prolonged recession in Europe; slowed growth in China; and the accelerated depreciation of the Japanese yen.

The domestic scene is hardly bright either. Swelling household debts are weighing heavily on the economy, which is already struggling with low growth and a slump in consumption amid rapid population aging and confrontations over labor reform.

Besides, our manufacturing sector, once the world’s envy, is losing competitiveness quickly, caught up by the weak yen and the technological advancement of Chinese firms. China overtook Korea in the global markets for smartphones, cars, shipbuilding and maritime plants, oil refineries and steelmaking.

What we hope for and should work on is to overcome the low-growth trap and the specter of deflation.

The dominant view is that the Korean economy will grow at less than 4 percent this year too and the inflation rate will stay at below 2 percent. It could be premature ― in view of the growth rate at such a level ― to worry about deflation, but we should guard against the possibility that this trend for low growth and low inflation could continue.

One more thing we need to watch out for this year is a possible deterioration of household debt, which already exceeds 1,060 trillion won. This, too, could further sap consumption and add to deflationary pressure.

The Park administration focused on expansionary fiscal policy last year. The Korean economy as we see on the first day of 2015 shows that it was hardly sufficient. Without painful restructuring ― from the labor market to the public sector and marginal firms ― we will be unable to attain high growth and resuscitate consumption and investment.

Besides North Korea and the economy, many other challenges certainly lie ahead in 2015 ― political reforms including revision of the Constitution aimed at changing the power structure, coping with the fast-aging population, reform of the labor market and the pension plans for government workers, to name a few.

We hope that many of these will play out well in the coming year so that we Koreans will find ourselves in better shape one year from now.