President Yoon Suk Yeol has singled out “vested cartels” that unduly benefit from anti-competitive structures and the sharing of government subsidies.

Yoon made the remark on Tuesday as he called for doing away with such groups while chairing a meeting on the direction of the government’s economic policies for the second half of the year.

While the president did not identify the industries in question, a press release by the top office issued later in the day specified that the financial and communications industries benefit from monopolistic and oligopolistic structures and the distribution of government subsidies for research and development projects.

Tuesday’s meeting reviewed the government's achievements in economic policies during the past year and discussed the direction of such policies for the latter half of the year.

Yoon ordered government agencies to prioritize the expansion of exports as he said the second half of this year is a key inflection point that will demonstrate the underlying strength of the South Korean economy.