Park Sang-woo (Korean: 박상우; born 9 November 1955) is the 8th Minister of Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of South Korea.
Early life
Born in Busan, South Gyeongsang Province (now Busan), he graduated from the Department of Public Administration at Korea University in Seoul. He received a master's degree in urban and regional planning from George Washington University in the United States and a doctorate in engineering in urban planning from Gachon University in Incheon.[1]
Career
He entered public service through the 27th Administrative Examination. He served as the Director of the Housing Policy Division, Director of the Construction Policy Division, and Director of the Planning and Coordination Division at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and served as the Director of the Housing and Land Division during the Lee Myung-bak government. At that time, he promoted several policies, including the relaxation of the upper limit on the sale price and the abolition of the excess profit recovery system for reconstruction.[1]
Afterwards, he served as the president of the Korea Construction Policy Research Institute, and in 2016, he was appointed president of the Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), where he served until 2019.[1]
In December 2023, he took office as Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
In June 2024, he expressed his support for the abolition of the Comprehensive Real Estate Tax.[2]
“I agree with the abolition of the comprehensive real estate tax. The comprehensive real estate tax is a punitive tax to prevent real estate profits from being high, and therefore does not conform to the principle of taxation. If you have income, you should pay income tax and capital gains tax, and pay property tax according to the price of the item, so that local governments can use it. However, (the past government) created the comprehensive real estate tax as a national tax and used it like a wealth tax.”
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