Ahn Cheol-soo, a national power lawmaker, says, ``If the Yun Seok-yeo administration postpones pension reform, it will become the second Greece.'' - South Korea

Ahn Cheol-soo, a lawmaker from the People's Power (ruling party), pointed out on the 27th, ``If we postpone pension reform, (South Korea) could become a second Greece.''
On this day, Rep. Yasu posted on social media a message about the government's failure to come to a conclusion on the national pension parameter reform (method of adjusting insurance premium rates and income replacement rates, etc.).
``We must urgently implement proper reforms so that younger generations and future generations can equally enjoy the benefits of the good system of the national pension system, even if the pension-receiving generation is suffering right now.''
Rep. Ahn said, ``The budget pension amount promised to be paid to National Pension members is 2,825 trillion won (approximately 312,622.9 billion yen) as of the end of 2023.The accumulated funds amount to 1,000 trillion won (approx.
0.663 trillion yen), the unfunded debt is 1.825 trillion won (approximately 201.9599 trillion yen), exceeding 80% of this year's projected gross domestic product (GDP).
He continued, ``The Republic of Korea has the world's lowest birth rate and the fastest growing elderly population, so the golden time for pension reform has already passed.
"If pension reform fails, the burden on future generations will snowball." Rep. Ahn said, ``Even though all members of South Korean society felt pain, we implemented reforms before South Korea did.''
We must learn lessons from pension reforms in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries and truly strengthen public pensions. In Greece, due to the economic and fiscal crisis, pension reform was carried out by outsiders.
"As a result, pensions for high-income recipients were cut by 50% in an instant." He added, ``Korea's pension financial situation is more serious than Greece.If things continue like this, we will have to become like Greece.''
There is no guarantee that this will happen,'' he said, stressing that the Yun Seo-gyul government must ``present a clear direction for pension reform and begin social dialogue.''
Rep. Ahn said, ``The age at which people must pay national pension insurance premiums should be gradually raised to 65 over the long term.There is no time to hesitate any longer.
In order to save the Republic of Korea, pension reform is no longer an option." Prior to this, the government announced on the same day that the National Pension Deliberation Committee deliberated and finalized the '5th National Pension Comprehensive Management Plan'.
A draft plan was announced. The draft plan was unable to reach any conclusions about the core issues of population reform, such as insurance premium rates, income replacement rates, and the age at which people should begin receiving benefits, and decided to only present major directions.