Ruling and Opposition Parties Agree on 12.2 Trillion Won Supplementary Budget... Plan to Reduce Bond Issuance and Increase Expenditure Adjustments

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] On the 29th, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to increase the size of the second supplementary budget bill for emergency disaster relief payments from the original government proposal of 7.6 trillion won to 12.2 trillion won, an increase of 4.6 trillion won. They also agreed to increase and decrease the scale of expenditure adjustments and deficit bond issuance by 200 billion won each compared to the original agreement.

Jeon Hae-cheol of the Democratic Party of Korea, Lee Jong-bae of the United Future Party, Park Joo-hyun of the Minsheng Party, and Yeom Dong-yeol of the Future Korea Party, the four party budget and accounts special committee secretaries, held a meeting at the National Assembly that morning and reached this agreement.

After the meeting, Representative Jeon said in a briefing, "We agreed to secure 1.2 trillion won by adding 200 billion won to the existing 1 trillion won through expenditure restructuring," and added, "We are conducting practical work on which specific items will have increased expenditure adjustments. The Ministry of Economy and Finance is working to finalize the plan."

Initially, the government set the budget at 9.7 trillion won, including 2.1 trillion won in local government expenses, based on payments to the bottom 70% income bracket, and submitted a second supplementary budget bill of 7.6 trillion won to the National Assembly. However, as the ruling party and government expanded the payment target to the entire population, the required budget increased to 14.3 trillion won.

Subsequently, the ruling party and government announced that of the additional 4.6 trillion won needed, 3.6 trillion won would be covered by bond issuance and 1 trillion won by local government expenses. However, the United Future Party criticized the additional bond issuance, saying, "Are they about to throw a debt party?" and demanded expenditure budget adjustments. After several days of tug-of-war, the ruling and opposition parties reached a compromise to secure the 1 trillion won local government burden through expenditure adjustments.

With the agreement of the budget and accounts committee secretaries of the ruling and opposition parties that day, it was finally settled that 3.4 trillion won of the additional funds would be raised through bond issuance and 1.2 trillion won through expenditure adjustments.

The ruling and opposition parties plan to hold a full meeting of the budget and accounts committee at 11 p.m. to approve the revised bill and submit it to the plenary session.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.