Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party presidential candidate and Governor of Gyeonggi Province, visited the Dongjak Fire Station in Seoul on the 22nd to encourage firefighters, who are essential social personnel, and then gave an interview to the press. (Photo by Yonhap News)
[Asia Economy Reporter Geum Bo-ryeong] Lee Jae-myung, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate and Governor of Gyeonggi Province, explained that the increased profits related to the 'Daejang-dong scandal' were due to the 'real estate surge.'
On the 22nd, Lee stated on Facebook, "The profit, initially estimated at 180 billion KRW from a 1.5 trillion KRW investment, increased to around 400 billion KRW due to an unforeseen real estate surge," adding, "If the real estate market had worsened, the profits would have decreased further or resulted in losses."
He continued, "The construction forces aiming for unearned income from land development, the People Power Party politicians who forced the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) to abandon public development, the People Power Party faction in Seongnam City that obstructed public development by hindering local bond issuance, and conservative media like the Chosun Ilbo that advocated respecting the market and blocked public development?all of them criticized us for not fully recovering 100% of the public development profits. Now, even if we fully recover all unearned development profits according to public development principles, they will not be able to oppose it," he explained.
Lee said, "Complete public recovery of Daejang-dong development profits was blocked by the People Power Party, and since we could not allow private development as they intended, we devised a method to carry out public development with private investment funds, recovering 550.3 billion KRW. Going forward, we have made it possible to legally mandate the public recovery of unearned development profits, establish a dedicated national agency to oversee this, and completely prevent real estate speculation, returning all development profits to the people through the 'Development Profit National Recovery System.' It is truly fortunate that we can fundamentally block land development real estate speculation," he stated.
He added, "In the next Democratic government, complete public development by the national land development agency will entirely eliminate the monopoly of unearned development profits," concluding, "Goodbye forever to construction corruption and unearned land income."
Meanwhile, Lee's camp expressed opposition to the opposition's demands for a special prosecutor and a parliamentary audit regarding the Daejang-dong scandal. On the same day, Park Ju-min, the general head of Lee's campaign headquarters and a Democratic Party lawmaker, said during a weekly briefing at the Yeouido campaign office that he was "firmly against the political exhaustion of this issue," in response to Kim Ki-hyun, the floor leader of the People Power Party, mentioning the introduction of a special prosecutor law and the promotion of a parliamentary audit.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
