President Yoon Suk-yeol presides over this year's first Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul, Jan. 3. Yonhap

President Yoon Suk-yeol called Tuesday for correcting the "abnormal ills" plaguing society while making a strong push for labor, education and pension reforms.

Yoon made the remark while presiding over this year's first Cabinet meeting at the presidential office, saying he also hopes to see swift progress on improving labor unions' accounting transparency, "normalizing" the national health insurance system and overhauling state subsidy management.

"Last year, despite difficult conditions, we checked the macroeconomic situation and worked to stabilize prices. We also thoroughly checked our key policy tasks," he said. "Now we must correct the abnormal ills hiding all over our society and strongly push the three top reforms in labor, education and pensions."

Yoon said 2023 must become a year the government keeps its promises to the people through action, with each ministry drawing up detailed plans and road maps for the realization of key policy tasks. He asked the Cabinet to frequently report the plans to him and the people.

Yoon also emphasized the importance of fostering the high-tech, science and technology industries as he referred to footage sent by Korea's unmanned space vehicle Danuri. The images were on display outside the meeting room.

"We may be looking at images of the Earth sent by Danuri now, but in the not too distant future, we will be able to see the Taegeukgi planted on the moon by a Republic of Korea astronaut," he said. Taegeukgi is the name of the Korean national flag.

Yoon also instructed the government to work hard for the successful launch of the state aerospace agency planned for this year. (Yonhap)