Gwangju City, Debt Balance Decreases... Second After Daejeon

Gwangju City Hall

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 30th that it will disclose the 2020 local finance (based on the 2019 fiscal year settlement) on its homepage on the 31st.

Local finance disclosure is a system that transparently reveals the status of city finances used for improving residents' welfare and expanding convenience facilities to the residents, and it is disclosed twice a year based on the budget and settlement.

By the end of August, after the local governments disclose their financial status, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will analyze the financial status of local governments based on 14 indicators in three areas: soundness, efficiency, and accountability, and then announce the results.

Based on the 2019 settlement, Gwangju's revenue and expenditure scale increased, with revenue rising 19.77% (1.1086 trillion KRW) from the previous year to 6.7163 trillion KRW, and expenditure increasing 21.77% (1.0674 trillion KRW) from the previous year to 5.9699 trillion KRW.

The composition of revenue includes 2.1837 trillion KRW of self-generated income combining local taxes and non-tax income, 2.9241 trillion KRW of transfer resources including local allocation tax and subsidies, and 1.6085 trillion KRW of others (local bonds, compensation income, internal transactions, fund operation income, etc.).

Expenditure was analyzed to have increased compared to the previous year as demand for expenditure grew in the social welfare sector, which accounted for the largest share (about 37.74%), followed by general public administration and transportation sectors.

The debt balance at the end of 2019 was 894.6 billion KRW based on the final budget, decreasing by 49.3 billion KRW (4.07 percentage points) from the previous year, maintaining a managed debt ratio of 16.62%.

This is the second lowest among the six metropolitan cities, following Daejeon (10.7%).

The debt condition is better than the average of similar local governments, and it is analyzed that sound finances were operated through expanding local tax revenue and efficient management of various project budgets.

Gwangju City disclosed the financial status based on the 2020 budget in February and this time disclosed it based on the 2019 fiscal year settlement data.

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