(Newsis) Even After the Parliamentary Audit, the Struggle over the Minutes of the ‘National Pension Rebalancing Deferral’ Continues (October 30, 2026)

(Regarding the National Pension’s rebalancing deferral,

Newsis

reported on the statements of the Pension Future Forum and

of the Future Generations Network

under the Pension Future Forum.)

[Seoul=Newsis] Reporter Koo Mu-seo = The parliamentary audit by the Health and Welfare Committee has ended, but the aftershocks of the decision to defer rebalancing of the National Pension Fund continue.

On the 29th, Kim Sung-joo, Chairman of the National Pension Service, posted on social media (SNS) a video titled “National Pension Rebalancing Fact Check.”

The video is an edited version of the chairman’s exchanges with ruling-party lawmakers during questioning on the National Pension’s rebalancing deferral at this year’s parliamentary audit.

The Fund Management Committee decided to raise the pension fund’s domestic stock allocation from 14.4% in January to 20.8% and to defer rebalancing until June.

In the video, Chairman Kim makes remarks such as “Had rebalancing not been deferred, about 800 billion won would have had to be sold off every day, which would have affected the domestic market,”

“Even at a stage like now, when the KOSPI has undergone a considerable correction, had the domestic stock allocation been kept at the old standard, we would still have to be selling now,”

and “The rebalancing deferral and the increase in the domestic stock allocation are, if anything, protecting the National Pension’s returns.”

Throughout the parliamentary audit, the chairman argued that the rebalancing deferral was a necessary measure in view of the stock market at the time. According to Representative Kim Yoon of the Democratic Party of Korea, the National Pension Fund’s rate of return in the first half of the year was 27.49%, higher than that of second-place Norway (9.41%) and third-place Japan (8.41%). As of July, too, the pension fund’s rate of return reached 14.84%.

On the other hand, calls for the grounds for the decision to defer rebalancing to be disclosed have also been raised continually.

Under the National Pension Act, the relevant minutes are to be disclosed after four years, but if the competent standing committee of the National Assembly requests them, the minutes must be submitted on a confidential basis.

During this parliamentary audit, the opposition repeatedly demanded disclosure of the minutes, but the ruling and opposition parties failed to reach an agreement, and the minutes were not submitted.

The Pension Future Forum’s Future Generations Network, made up of young people,

said in a statement, “We do not presume in advance that the rebalancing judgment was wrong.

It may have been a reasonable decision that took into account market conditions at the time and even the shock that large-scale selling would bring,” adding, “If so, there is all the less reason to avoid scrutiny.”

It continued, “Future generations cannot take this issue lightly.

Today’s young people are the generation that will pay higher contributions in the years ahead and will have to bear the consequences of today’s fund management decisions the longest,”

and stressed, “Such young people cannot simply be told to trust blindly without even being able to confirm why their own retirement savings were managed differently from the existing principles.”

The Pension Future Forum also

said in its statement,

“The National Pension itself announced that its fund reserves had reached 1,865 trillion won at the end of June, but they fell to 1,684 trillion won at the end of August.

They decreased by 181 trillion won in just one month,” and “If the principles were changed, why they were changed must be explained.

It must not be a structure in which the fund’s investment performance is actively publicized when results are good, but those accountable vanish when results turn bad.”

Reporter Koo Mu-seo ([email protected])

https://n.news.naver.com/article/003/0014289346?sid=102