Anchor: The Lee Jae Myung administration has announced a new economic growth strategy to push the nation’s potential growth rate to three percent. After forecasting a growth of less than one percent for 2025, it’s hoping that a plan to foster artificial intelligence in both the public and private sectors will serve as a future growth engine.
Our Choi You Sun reports.

Report: The government expects the domestic economy to expand just zero-point-nine percent in 2025.

It is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that a government outlook has fallen short of one percent.

With some experts worried that the country’s potential growth rate could approach zero percent by the 2040s, Seoul is seeking to mitigate the crisis with artificial intelligence(AI).

Through its Great AI Transformation Project, the government intends to foster seven industries, including AI robots, automobiles, drones and semiconductors, while incorporating AI technology into the public sector to enhance work efficiency.

It also says it will bolster AI education for the general public and improve the working environment to prevent a brain drain in the domestic AI sector.

Investments will be directed to industries such as biotech and K-content, with a focus on 15 innovation tasks such as tackling the climate crisis via solar energy and hydrogen power.

More than 100 trillion won, or around 72 billion U.S. dollars, will be spent to establish a public growth fund for such endeavors.

The government’s goal is to increase the potential growth rate to three percent from the current level of around two percent.
Choi You Sun, KBS World Radio News.