President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol vowed Monday to remove all institutional obstacles hindering businesses, saying economic growth should be led not by the government but by companies.

Yoon made the remark during a lunch meeting with the chiefs of six major business lobbies, stressing he is a strong believer in a free market economy.

“The government‘s job is to remove institutional obstacles so that businesses can decide more freely, invest freely and grow,” he said. “Our (economy) must now change from being led by the government to being led by the private sector.”

Yoon asked the participants to inform him on what the obstacles are.

“If the government builds the infrastructure and supports you from behind, and businesses lead the way in creating jobs and making investments so that companies grow, isn’t that how the nation grows?” he said.

The participants included Chey Tae-won, chief of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Huh Chang-soo, chief of the Federation of Korean Industries; Kim Ki-mun, head of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business; Sohn Kyung-shik, head of the Korea Enterprises Federation; Christopher Koo, chief of the Korea International Trade Association; and Choi Jin-shik, head of the Federation of Middle Market Enterprises of Korea.

Yoon, meanwhile, said the Korean economy is feared to slip into stagflation where inflation continues to rise at a time of weak growth, given the Ukraine crisis and more rate hikes in the United States.

“The general public‘s sufferings in the wake of the pandemic are being aggravated more ... and in order to help the economy leap forward, we have to have an economic paradigm led by the private sector, not by the government,” he said on social media. (Yonhap)