Construction Minister: “No Change in Opposition to Publicizing Apartment Costs

“The government’s position to oppose publicizing new apartment building costs has not been and won’t be changed,” said Construction and Transportation Minister Kang Dong-suk once again on Thursday.

“There is no reason to avoid publicizing apartment costs as long as those measures are reliable means to lower apartment costs, but if we reveal real apartment costs, it would escalate disorder, far from lowering the costs,” said Minister Kang on Thursday afternoon during a meeting with the press at the Gwacheon government complex.

Kang said, “The reason that civic groups are demanding the publicizing of the costs is for lowering the cost of apartments. However, the cost peg system is more effective than cost revelation in lowering apartment costs.”

He also said, “Even though cost peg system is an alternative to publicizing the costs, people seem to regard these two as completely separate cases,” and added, “We are considering using a different term instead of the ‘cost peg system’ to eradicate misunderstanding.”

In the meantime, Minister Kang participated in breakfast meeting for CEOs in the Grand Hyatt Hotel under the auspice of the Korea Management Association and said, “We will establish guidelines for would-be built new towns to regulate colors of building, numbers and sizes of signs.”

Kwang-Hyun Kim kkh@donga.com