Seoul: Acting Budget Minister Lim Ki-geun stated that South Korea's declining birthrate has emerged as the nation's most pressing challenge, highlighting the need for immediate and effective countermeasures. Lim's comments were made during a government expert forum addressing demographic challenges, where he identified this issue as the most urgent among the country's five major structural reform tasks.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Lim referenced recent remarks by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who highlighted the critical nature of South Korea's demographic situation in a recent interview. Musk quipped, "North Korea won't need to invade. They can just walk across," suggesting that South Korea's population could experience a significant decline within a few decades if current trends persist.

Lim acknowledged Musk's critique as "painful but necessary," and reaffirmed the government's commitment to prioritizing the population crisis in its reform agenda. Alongside this, the government is also focusing on other key reform areas, such as a large-scale transition to artificial intelligence (AI) and efforts to mitigate increasing social polarization.

During the forum discussions, Lim emphasized the government's intention to establish clear objectives and performance metrics for a mid- to long-term national population strategy. He assured that officials will continuously seek input from various societal sectors to formulate sustainable growth policies that adequately address demographic shifts.