President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday the government's all-out campaign to bring the 2030 World Expo to Busan was aimed at bringing balanced development and rapid growth, as the vote to select the host city was hours away.
Yoon made the remark during a Cabinet meeting as the 182 member states of the Bureau International des Expositions, the body in charge of overseeing the World Expo, were set to vote during a general assembly in Paris later Tuesday (local time).
The candidate cities are South Korea's southeastern city of Busan; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; and Rome, Italy.
"The Busan Expo was strongly pursued for the balanced development and rapid growth of the Republic of Korea," Yoon said, noting he held more than 150 meetings with state leaders as part of the campaign.
"Even during my recent overseas trip, I continued to hold phone calls with the leaders of each nation at every opportunity and appealed for their support for Busan for the 2030 Expo," he said, referring to his recent trips to San Francisco, Britain and France.
Yoon claimed the world was deeply impressed by South Korea's dynamism and potential after witnessing how the country's public and private sectors came together to campaign for the event.
Yoon also urged the National Assembly to quickly pass a revision to the Labor Standards Act to punish employers who habitually fail to pay their employees on time.
Such delayed payments threaten the lives of workers and their families, and especially young people who are just starting their careers, leaving some of them with bad credit ratings, he said.
"Our law handles overdue wages as a criminal offense. The principle of the rule of law in labor and management affairs should be applied fairly to both workers and employers," Yoon said.
"I urge the National Assembly to pass the revision to the Labor Standards Act during the current session without fail to restrict employers that habitually make delayed payments from participating in the government's various assistance projects and disadvantage them in public bids and financial transactions," he said.
Yoon also addressed recent disruptions in the government's online civil service networks, saying the matter calls for a proper investigation into the root cause, including whether there was chronic mismanagement by splitting contracts and frequently changing management companies, or a cyberattack from outside.
"Only when we know the fundamental cause can we prevent something. If security against cyberattacks was the issue, we have to reinforce the security wall, and if management and response are the issue, we must immediately improve the system so that it can operate organically," he said.
On his recent overseas trips, Yoon said he stated South Korea's commitment to leading action on climate change during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, while upgrading bilateral tries to a global strategic partnership during his state visit to Britain and meeting with diplomats in Paris to deliver a final push to bring the 2030 World Expo to Busan.