SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung instructed his aides on Thursday to come up with measures to stabilise prices and ease people's financial burdens.
Lee made the remark during a meeting with his senior secretaries and aides, as last month's consumer prices rose 2.4 per cent from a year earlier, missing the Bank of Korea's 2 per cent target for the third consecutive month.
"As perceived inflation has risen recently, it is placing a considerable burden on people's livelihoods, " he said during the meeting at the presidential office, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"I ask relevant ministries to thoroughly inspect the supply-demand situation of key consumer items and preemptively mobilise policy measures to stabilise prices."
Lee again urged his aides to check for cases where prices are raised through unfair fixing or unfair profits are made by abusing monopolistic power.
Despite difficult conditions at home and abroad, Lee said the country's exports have given hope to the people, with the annual total expected to hit a record high of USD 700 billion this year.