Moon names industry, welfare minister nominees

President Moon Jae-in on Monday named nominees for the industry and welfare ministers, along with the chiefs of financial and telecommunication authorities and senior aides for employment and economy.

To head the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Moon tapped Paik Un-gyu, and Park Neung-hoo to head the Ministry of Health and Welfare. 

Paik is a professor of engineering, currently serving as the dean of one of Hanyang University’s schools of engineering.

With Paik and Park’s nomination, Moon’s Cabinet is nearly complete, with the heads of all existing ministries having been named or appointed.

Paik’s nomination appears to be aimed at supporting Moon’s plans for increasing the use of alternative energy sources.

“Paik is a respected academic in the field of renewable energy and predicting energy demand, and he is the right man to lead the new government’s industry, trade and natural resource policies with deep insight,” presidential spokesman Park Soo-hyun said.

“It is expected that Paik will take an innovative lead in developing future energy sources to replace coal, nuclear and other conventional fuels.”

Welfare Minister nominee Park is also an academic, currently teaching at Kyonggi University.

Born in Haman, South Gyeongsang Province, in 1956, Park trained as an economist at Seoul National University, and later obtained a master’s in political science at the same university in 1982 and a doctorate in social welfare at UC Berkeley in 1998.

The nominee served as presidents of the Korean Association of Social Welfare Policy and Kyunggi Graduate University of Social Welfare, and later headed the Korean Social Security Association.

For the post of Korea Communication Commission chief, Moon named another academic, Lee Hyo-seong of Sungkyunkwan University. Lee’s field of expertise is media and he has served as deputy chief of the KCC.

Along with the two ministers and the KCC chief, the president named Choi Jong-ku to head the Financial Services Commission. Choi currently heads the Export-Import Bank of Korea. 

“As a nominee of the FSC chief in charge of crafting financial policies for national economy, I feel grave responsibility,” Cho said in his nomination speech held in the Eximbank headquarter in Seoul Monday.

Choi also vowed to tackle the household debt issue, which he said has dragged the economic growth and consumption, with a long-term approach, “There is no shortcut to reduce the volume of the debt,” he said.

When asked about whether the overhaul of the financial authorities -- the FSC and the Financial Supervisory Service -- he said the authorities have long taken actions but has yet to come up with a clear answer. But Choi added he is open to policy discussion.

He also hinted that his policy on unemployment might not come in sync with those proposed by the Moon Jae-in administration.

This came after Choi was appointed as the head of the Eximbank in March. Choi, 60-year-old career bureaucrat, is well known for his expertise in international finance.

Choi has a track record of stabilizing currency market during the 2008 financial crisis, by spearheading in currency swap deals with the United States, China and Japan.

Born in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, in 1957, Choi graduated from Korea University with major in Trade and received a master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Moon also named two key senior presidential secretaries. The post of employment secretary will be served by Bahn Jahng-shick, the chief of Sogang University’s Graduate School of Management of Technology.

Moon’s top economy adviser is also to be an academic, professor Hong Jang –pyo of Pukyong University. 


By Choi He-suk, Bak Se-hwan
(cheesuk@heraldcorp.com) (sh@heraldcorp.com)