South Korea is preparing a policy package to attract international visitors in the first half of 2023 to boost local consumption and stimulate economic recovery, amid concerns over declining consumer spending due to high interest rates.
Vice Finance Minister Kim Byeong-hwan said on Monday that South Korea is preparing a policy package targeted at drawing international visitors in the first half of the year to increase local consumption.
“The number of foreign tourists visiting South Korea has been growing and the government will prepare measures to ensure the trend continues as a driver of a recovery in domestic demand,”
Kim
He said that a K-beauty festival will take place in Seoul for a month in June, but he did not go into detail about other legislative changes.
According to the finance ministry, the number of international visitors to South Korea increased to 11 million in 2023 from 3.2 million in 2022 and 967,000 in 2021, mostly due to increases in Chinese and Japanese visitors. In contrast, 17.5 million people were living there before the epidemic in 2019.
Concerns over the rate of economic recovery have been raised in the fourth-largest economy in Asia as a result of consumer expenditure declining as a result of interest rates being high for an extended length of time.
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