President Lee Myung-bak has given two choices to the heads of public corporations -- reform their organizations or quit working.

President Lee said this at joint policy briefings given by 34 public enterprises, including KEPCO, the Korea National Housing Corporation, and the Korea Land Corporation, at Cheong Wa Dae on Tuesday (Dec. 29).

The President called on the public firms to renew their sense of work ethics under the new administration. He urged the participants at the briefings to take full responsibility for renovating their organizations to improve work efficiency. "You should be entirely determined to carry out reform, or you should leave your posts," he stressed.

There are some public firms that operate as efficiently as private companies, but most of them are blamed by the public for being unprofessional and lazy, Lee said.

"Many people say that reform and innovation are inappropriate in time of economic difficulties, but I am strongly opposed to the idea." Lee said that innovation is all the more necessary just because the economy is in a slump.

Lee emphasized that reform should involve downsizing and restructuring at the same time. If private enterprises seem to be more capable of carrying out a project than public firms, the project should be either outsourced to or completely taken over by the private sector, Lee said.

Lee said he will sternly deal with any civil servants involved in irregularities and corruption. He went on to say that law and order should be established for Korea to become an advanced country, and the incumbent administration will try hard to bring changes to each and every aspect of the society, as well as jump start the economy.

Meanwhile, the public corporations reported to the President that they will increase facility investment to 57 trillion won (US$45.3 billion) next year from 48 trillion won ($38.2 billion) this year. The investment will be mainly used to build highways, railroads, new cities, and energy facilities.