South Korea should do its best to maintain its fiscal soundness, the nation's top economic policymaker said Tuesday, reaffirming his opposition to what he calls growing populist welfare demand. "We have to make all our efforts to keep our fiscal soundness in the face of populism to prevent the current generation's debt-dependent life from causing difficulties for our next generations," Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan told other policymakers in a meeting in Seoul.