South Korea's presidential front-runner vows to boost stock markets

Youkyung Lee, Bloomberg News on Apr 20, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s presidential-election front-runner, said he would make changes to the nation’s equity markets to eradicate stock manipulation and protect shareholders.

The former leader of the main opposition Democratic Party will seek gradual reform of the corporate governance system by amending a key bill on board duties, and by protecting minority shareholders during corporate actions such as duplicate listings, he said in a Facebook post.

He also promised to come up with a concrete road map for South Korea to get an upgrade to MSCI Inc.’s list of developed markets from its current status of emerging market.

Lee said those measures will end the era of the so-called “Korea Discount,” the persistent undervaluations in the Korean equity market, and will help the equity benchmark Kospi to reach the 5,000 level. The Kospi traded almost flat at about 2,485 as of Monday.

South Korea is holding a presidential election on June 3 after former President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached following his botched attempt at martial law in December.