President Lee : shared growth vital for South Korea

Major and small businesses should focus on growing together if South Korea has to move further forward following the conglomerate-centered industrialization, President Lee Myung-bak said here Thursday. Lee also said his campaign for shared growth or 'eco-systemic development' is in line with the political buzzword of 'economic democratization' that major presidential candidates and political parties have been calling for in unison ahead of December's election, official news agency Yonhap reported today. "Our society has hectically developed so far but reached a point of limit where we can't move forward any more unless we seek development through cooperation with each other," Lee said during a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the government's campaign for shared growth. Shared growth has been one of Lee's key objectives. It calls for the rich, such as large conglomerates, to do more to help those less well-off so as to narrow economic inequalities amid perceptions that big firms prey on smaller ones and dominate the fruits of economic growth. Lee believes that social inequalities have worsened so much in market-based economies that it could destabilize societies unless the gaps are narrowed. Lee has called for a new type of market economy that puts a greater emphasis on sharing the benefits of growth with the less privileged. "Our political circles are talking about various things in this regard, including economic democratization, and I believe all these have in them the concept of shared growth and eco-systemic development," Lee said.