Finance ministry pledges broader youth support after vice minister's first site visit

South Korea's finance ministry said Tuesday it will expand next year's youth budget significantly and sharpen support tailored to each stage of young people's lives, as Vice Finance Minister Kwon Dae-young made a startup incubator in Seoul the first stop of his tenure.

Kwon visited SVC Seoul, a startup support centre in Mapo District, and held a roundtable with university students, founders, interns and office workers to hear their views on the government's three core social policies: housing, employment and consumer finance, the ministry said. It was his first official field trip since taking the post, following two similar youth engagements by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Lee Hyung-il this month.

SVC Seoul, which stands for Startup Venture Campus Seoul, opened in May and is the country's largest incubation facility, supporting startups in fields such as artificial intelligence and content from their earliest years through to overseas expansion. During a tour of young companies housed there, Kwon watched demonstrations of services including AI-based housing searches and a platform that matches users with public programmes.

"Young people have stronger capabilities and ideas than any other generation, but the walls of reality they face are still far from easy," Kwon said, according to the ministry. "We will strengthen support tailored to each stage of life, centred on the three core social policies of housing, jobs and consumer finance that form the basic foundation of young people's lives."

The young participants asked for more government attention to helping them find a first job and linking work experience to employment, to building a startup support system suited to the AI era, to easing housing anxiety as jeonse and monthly rents climb, and to helping them build assets as they enter work and pass through life's turning points.

Kwon replied that the government has made supporting young people's growth a top priority, including a large increase in the youth budget for next year, and said support would be applied carefully at each stage of growth, from first steps into work or business through to securing stable housing and building assets.

He also said policy delivery matters more than policy design, and that the government would keep checking whether life-cycle support is working on the ground so that it changes young people's lives rather than remaining a set of numbers on paper.

Kwon said support would be concentrated on young people in difficult circumstances, including those just entering society, those trying again after failure, those who have been out of work for long periods and those in remote regions, adding that the government would act as a support and a ladder for those who have fallen.

He closed the meeting by saying the opinions gathered would be reflected as far as possible in youth policy, in consultation with the relevant ministries.