1. Emerging countries' financial market instability and the Korean economy
With the full-fledged QE tapering of the US, stock prices in emerging countries have continued to weaken with a more significant drop than those in advanced countries. Korean stock prices have remained steady with a downward tendency but more stable than those in emerging countries. In spite of the financial market instability in emerging countries, the Korea economy is expected to recover thanks to a stable financial market and increasing exports to China, but at a slow pace.
 
2.  SMEs' sluggish investment and its implications
Since the economic crisis, the contribution of investment to growth gradually declined to -1.1% in Q4 2012 but has recovered recently. When viewed by company size, large companies' capital investment has increased while that of SMEs' has significantly dropped, with overall investment showing a recovery. It is necessary to reinforce support to build SEM's overseas marketing capabilities and increase their utilization of FTAs, etc. to reinvigorate investment by SMEs. While the domestic market has remained stagnant, the investment increase ratio by company size in the service sector from 2010~2013 demonstrates that large companies increased investment by 30.7% while SMEs by only 19.7%. It is desirable to support SME's investments in a way to promote their productivity expansion in the long-term.

3. Early budget execution and economic stabilization
The government has carried out early budget execution since 2003 to maintain stable economic growth throughout the year and maximize the effect of budget execution. It is necessary to raise the accuracy of economic forecasting when executing the budget, as there was room for a more accurate diagnosis of some aspects of the economic situation,  while early budget execution has been found to have substantially contributed to overcoming the economic crisis and realizing economic stabilization. It is necessary to flexibly adjust the execution ratio depending on the economic situation and expand early budget execution in case of economic crisis.
 
4. 2013 national tax income
In 2013, national tax income was 201.9 trillion won, 8.5 trillion won (4%) short of the supplementary budget (210.4 trillion won). The sluggish tax income in 2013 is attributable to economic stagnation along with a sluggish real estate and stock markets and a decline in corporate tax income caused by weak corporate performance in 2012. The elasticity of tax to national income in 2013 stood at -0.14, indicating a more severe slowdown in tax income than in previous economic downturns.