South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance sets Middle East war response measures including public contract support and public-sector virtual asset controls

South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance convened an Emergency Economic Headquarters and economic ministers meeting to review the response to the Middle East war and to advance a package of measures covering supply-chain stabilisation, support for public procurement contractors, and strengthened controls for virtual assets held by the public sector, alongside steps to reinforce information security and personal data protection certification regimes. The package includes designating seven petrochemical base oil items as “crisis items” under the Supply Chain Stabilization Basic Act and prioritising raw-material supply for healthcare and essential goods. For procurement suppliers struggling to perform public contracts due to raw-material supply instability linked to the conflict, the measures provide for contract price adjustments and extensions of delivery deadlines. For virtual assets held by public bodies, the government will put in place an end-to-end management system spanning acquisition, custody, management and inspections, and incident response, while the information-security strand includes mandatory personal information protection certification and strengthened certification standards to improve the effectiveness of management and certification systems.