SEOUL, March 14 Reuters South Korea will consider beefing up its corporate reform plan, aimed at boosting shareholder returns and stock prices, the financial regulator said on Thursday, after initial proposals fell short of market expectations.

The plan, announced in February and dubbed the Corporate Valueup Programme, seeks to correct a tendency for listed South Korean companies to have lower valuations than global peers due to factors such as low dividend payouts and the dominance of opaque conglomerates known as chaebols. But some asset mangers and analysts have said the proposals don39;t go far enough as they lack compulsory requirements or tax benefits.

Kim Soyoung, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said that regulators now planned to speed up the schedule for the reform, initially set for by the end of the first half of this year, and would add measures including possible tax benefits.

We will do our best to announce and implement before the previously planned schedule, as the market39;s expectations are high, Kim said.

Meanwhile, the government is actively considering tax support measures and plans to announce them as soon as they are prepared, he said.

He was speaking during a meeting with domestic institutional investors, including the country39;s pension fund, National Pension Service NPS, as they discussed revisions to stewardship guidelines and developing a new index to make the reform plan more effective.

At a separate media event on…