New South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office with a promise to boost prosperity not only in his country but in North Korea as well — provided the communist state abandons its nuclear weapons.

"Economic revival is our most urgent task," Lee said in his inaugural speech Feb. 25 after taking the oath of office as South Korea's first conservative president in a decade.

South Koreans gave the former high-profile construction executive a landslide victory in December's election on his pledge to revitalize the economy and take a less conciliatory approach to nuclear-armed North Korea.

"We must move from the age of ideology into the age of pragmatism," Lee told some 60,000 people who gathered for his inauguration, taking a swipe at the past 10 years of liberal rule during which he said, "we found ourselves faltering and confused."

Lee, 66, also called for a stronger alliance with top ally Washington and implored North Korea to forgo its nuclear ambitions and open up to the outside world, promising a better future for the impoverished nation.

He wooed voters by promising to reach annual economic growth of 7 percent, double the country's per capita income to 40,000 over a decade and make South Korea one of the world's top seven economies.

One analyst was more cautionary.

"One of the sternest challenges Mr. Lee will face is the weight of expectations he has manufactured," said Daniel Melser, senior economist at Moody's Economy.com. "Global economic conditions have soured ever since Lee made this promise late last year."