S. Koreans demand stable prices, housing market from government: poll

SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- Stable consumer prices and housing market are what South Korean people demand the most from its government, central bank poll showed Monday.

According to a survey of 2,119 households conducted by the Bank of Korea (BOK) between Dec. 3 and 28, more than 40 percent of respondents said the government should set its top priority at stable consumer prices and housing prices when implementing economic policy.

Around 30 percent demanded economic growth from the government, while about 20 percent replied that the administration should take measures to create more jobs.

Park Geun-hye was sworn in as South Korea's first female president on Monday, pledging economic revival. The new administration said in a 140-point policy agenda for the next five years that it will maintain consumer price inflation at the 2 percent level.

The BOK survey showed that more than two-thirds of the respondents demanded the central bank set its top priority at stable inflation when deciding the benchmark interest rate.

Meanwhile, 34.7 percent of respondents said that housing prices fell in the past 12 months, higher than those who replied their home prices rose over the past year. More than half of the respondents expected housing prices to stay at the currency level in the next 12 months.

The new government pledged at the policy agenda that it will normalize regulations on the property market in a bid to block housing prices and transactions from falling further.

Regarding household debts, more than 60 percent of South Korean people replied that they will have difficulties in repaying principals and interests. Almost 20 percent said that they planned to sell real estates and financial assets to pay back debts.

Over-indebted households, which spend more than 40 percent of income in repaying debts, accounted for 13.1 percent in 2012 of the total households that hold debts. The country's household credit rose in the fourth quarter to a new record 959.4 trillion won (883.43 billion U.S. dollars) as of the end of 2012.

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