Lunar New Year break may be 6 days

[Anchor]

The government and the ruling party have decided to push for designating Monday, January 27, as a temporary public holiday just before the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.

If this happens, the holiday could last for six days.

The intention is to boost domestic consumption, but there are also counterarguments.

Reporter Choi In-young has the story.

[Report]

This year's Lunar New Year holiday is from January 28 to 30.

It falls from Tuesday to Thursday.

With Monday, the 27th, sandwiched in between, if it is designated as a temporary public holiday, people could have six days off starting from the weekend.

The government and the ruling party plan to discuss this agenda at a high-level party-government meeting tomorrow (1.8).

While the government is still in the process of reviewing the proposal, the ruling party is actively demanding the designation of a temporary public holiday.

If one takes leave on the 31st as well, it would create a '9-day holiday', which is expected to stimulate consumer sentiment as domestic travel and shopping increase.

[Joo Won/Director of Hyundai Economic Research Institute: "The spending scale for sending gifts to family, relatives, and acquaintances tends to increase. I believe there will be some effect on boosting domestic consumption."]

Last year, the government also designated National Armed Forces Day as a temporary public holiday.

In 2023, October 2, which falls between the Chuseok holiday and The National Foundation Day, was also made a temporary public holiday.

This has been a common strategy used to stimulate domestic consumption.

However, there are no verified survey results regarding the effectiveness of boosting consumption.

There are counterarguments that it merely leads to early spending of money that would be used later, resulting in little effect.

The controversy over 'discrimination' against small business owners and employees who find it difficult to take time off may also arise again.

This is KBS News, Choi In-young.