Korea’s finance minister urged the business community Thursday to ramp up its investment and hiring this year in order to help the nation’s economy tide over toughening economic conditions at home and abroad.

In a meeting with heads of major business lobby groups in central Seoul, Bahk Jae-wan promised that the government will continue its efforts to improve the overall business environment by streamlining red tape deemed to be unnecessarily hampering activities in the corporate sector.

“When the economy remains in a slump, active investment is a way to ease the downturn,” the minister said. “As the investment plans unveiled by the top 30 groups are based on insight, I hope that they are surely carried out to provide a springboard to growth.”

His remarks come after the nation’s 30 largest conglomerates announced on Friday that they will invest a combined 151.4 trillion won ($132.3 billion) and hire 123,000 new workers in 2012, which are 12.3 percent and 2.2 percent, respectively, higher than the previous year.

Bahk called on the business sector to expand hiring, saying that job creation is an effective solution to helping the economy faced with growing uncertainty from the eurozone debt crisis, geopolitical tensions over North Korea and major elections scheduled for this year.

Reiterating the government’s commitment to providing a business-friendly environment, he also promised to do his best to tackle any possible problems related to regulations.

The business leaders who attended the meeting painted a gloomy picture of market conditions this year. They said that the eurozone debt crisis will hurt their exports and rising household debt will also undercut domestic demand.

Huh Chang-soo, the chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries, called for the government to step up its efforts to maintain fiscal health and consolidate economic fundamentals.

He promised that the corporate sector, for its part, will focus on creating jobs and expanding investment by seeking new growth engines. (Yonhap News)