President Park Geun-hye pushed on Monday for measures to bolster domestic spending next year to aid in getting South Korea's economic growth back on track.

The government expects the local economy to grow 3.1 percent next year while most private think tanks forecast that the economy could hover below 3 percent due to sluggish growth in exports and weak consumer spending.

"We need to come up with measures to boost domestic consumption," Park said in a meeting with senior secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae, South Korea's presidential office, adding that the government should keep the embers of economic recovery alive.

She also asked officials to make thorough preparations to frontload parts of next year's budget related to job creation and economic recovery.

The government has recently announced a plan to spend 125 trillion won ($105.6 billion) of next year's 386.4 trillion won budget in the first quarter to keep up the country's growth momentum.

Park warned that public anger will rise over the parliament's failure to pass a set of bills meant to reform South Korea's labor markets.

The comment is the latest pressure on the National Assembly to approve a set of bills meant to revitalize the economy.

There is currently a standoff between the presidential office and National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa over how to handle the bills.

Chung has recently rejected the presidential office's request that he invoke his authority to take a set of economic bills to the floor and put them to a vote.

Separately, Park denounced lawmakers for passing a revision to the customs law without proper debate, which she said is to blame for looming massive job cuts in the duty-free sector.

The revision requires duty-free operators to compete with other bidders to renew their licenses every five years, down from 10 years.

Lotte, the nation's top duty-free operator and the world's third-largest, was able to keep one store in central Seoul, while losing another in eastern Seoul whose operating license expires this month.

SK Networks, a unit under SK Group, also has to close its duty-free store.

It is the first time that an existing duty-free operator has lost a license in the new open competition. (Yonhap)