Seoul:President Lee Jae Myung announced that the recent rebound in the country's potential growth rates is a positive indication of a recovery in the fundamentals of the national economy. He emphasized that this trend should contribute to balanced growth for both large and small firms.

According to Yonhap News Agency, President Lee made these remarks during a meeting with his senior aides. He referred to a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) report predicting the country's potential growth rate at 2.14 percent this year, increasing to 2.2 percent by 2027. These figures represent the first consecutive annual increases in about 40 years.

President Lee expressed that the rebound in potential growth rates, considered as the basic physical strength of the economy, signifies a strengthening foundation for economic growth. He stressed the importance of using this trend as a steppingstone for sustainable and balanced growth by enhancing the competitiveness of artificial intelligence and other advanced industries. Additionally, he mentioned the need to focus financial and policy resources on sectors that are slower to recover.

He further noted that to translate this rare rebound into qualitative improvements in the economic conditions of the people, an industrial ecosystem must be created where conglomerates and small and medium-sized firms can grow together. He warned that concentrating growth only on conglomerates might exacerbate economic polarization and harm the national economy's potential growth capacity, which would be "undesirable" for smaller firms that account for 80 percent of total employment.

President Lee called for a renewed paradigm of mutual cooperation between conglomerates and smaller firms to ensure they grow together in a balanced manner, ultimately leading to improvements in people's livelihoods.