President Moon Jae-in said the government should maintain an expansionary policy  in drawing up next year’s budget to deal more effectively with the economic fallout from the protracted pandemic.  

According to Presidential Spokesperson Park Kyung-mee, Moon made the remarks during an inaugural economic ministerial meeting on public livelihood on Thursday. 

Park said that Moon instructed his Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki on expansionary budget planning for next year and discuss the matter with fiscal authorities and related government agencies. 

Moon also stressed measures to ease financial burden on the working class stemming from loan defaults, attributing much of the crunch they face to COVID-19, which he described as a social disaster. 

In response, Minister Hong said the government will expand the amount of funding assistance for the working class to as much as ten trillion won per year, while promising to swiftly execute this year's supplementary budget to help minimize the adverse impact of the pandemic on people's finances.