Korea Housing Finance Corp. (KHFC) named Lee Jung-hwan, former chairman of the Korea Exchange, as its president and CEO on Dec. 28, 2017, with the Financial Services Commission requesting formal presidential approval. President Lee Jung-hwan was officially inaugurated on Jan. 3 as the company’s 7th president in a ceremony held at the company’s head office on Jan. 3.
In his inaugural speech, Lee said he was happy to serve again “for the people and for the nation at the head of this important company” whose main role is to provide funds to build the residential houses.
Lee said he intends to provide use funds efficiently so that more houses can be built.
“I have so far been engaged in setting up financial policies, searching for government policy directions, the development of the financial market and the future development of the country during my prolonged public servant career,” he said. “Now, I have the time to give myself once again to the nation and its people and put into action the things I have been thinking about.”
The government should give priority to relieving the number of poor people who don’t own houses, and the KHFC should support the government to achieve its priorities in its policies, one of which is to build more houses to improve its housing welfare program. First, the KHFC should employ updated market friendly financial methods to diversify its financial resources both at home and abroad to secure inexpensive long-term stable funds and activate the long-term bond issuance by expanding the MBS circulation systematically, Lee said.
Second, the KHFC will try to boost the support of public housing funds to expand the protection of financially-isolated people and mid-level families to achieve their dreams of home ownership by boosting the supply of funds tailor-made for them.
He will introduce new commodities that can drastically help college grads, newlyweds and other young people to secure their own houses as early as they can.
He will also make available policy loans to multinational families, the handicapped, families with not enough financial means and those who need social considerations.
Lee promised to try to cut the expenses for their loans. The KHFC will boost the supply of rental homes and the number of homes that can be bought later under an arrangement with housing suppliers. To this end, Lee will try to increase the number of housing guarantees to housing suppliers so they can increase the supply of rental houses.
Korea has become a country with many senior residents who have a tough time securing enough funds to live comfortably due to an inadequate retirement pension system, a major factor in placing Korea atop the OECD in suicide rates for senior citizens.
The new KHFC president said seniors worked hard for the development of Korea’s national economy. They own their homes with money they saved while they were young and now they need money to support themselves, but they are too old to work.
The situation can be a factor that slows down the growth of the economy consequently. The housing pension system is the senior citizens’ livelihood safety net set up by the government to ensure that no one would have trouble in their post-retirement lives.
The KHFC should not spare any means to allow seniors with their own homes to secure funds they need to survive, whether they live in cities or in local villages, so they would not have hard time making ends meet.
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