Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon has asked rival parties to approve the government’s supplementary budget proposal. 

In a speech before the National Assembly on Tuesday, the prime minister explained that the supplementary budget is an emergency measure to address decreasing jobs for youths as well to aid smaller businesses and regions hit hard by corporate restructuring. 

Lee said it is also aimed at preventing massive unemployment among echo boomers, which refer to children born between the 1970s and early 1990s. 

Of the three-point-nine trillion won supplementary budget, two-point-nine trillion won will be spent to address youth unemployment and one trillion for supporting the struggling regions. 

The prime minister also touched on political developments on the Korean Peninsula. 

He pledged utmost efforts to lay the foundation for establishing peace and prosperity through a series of top-level meetings from the latest inter-Korean summit to the upcoming Seoul-Washington summit and to a scheduled summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.