Jeju Island, Next Year's Budget Set at 5.8299 Trillion Won

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters (Jeju) Reporter Park Chang-won] Jeju Special Self-Governing Province announced on the 13th that it has prepared a budget proposal for next year amounting to 5.8299 trillion won, an increase of 7 billion won compared to this year’s 5.8229 trillion won, along with a fund operation plan of 669.3 billion won, and submitted them to the Jeju Provincial Council under the goal of "building a greater Jeju where residents are happy and life is worth living."

Jeju Province decided that the basic direction of next year’s budget will be ▲ responding to COVID-19 and fostering innovative growth engines through selection and concentration ▲ fiscal investment linked to government policy projects such as job creation, social safety nets, and the New Deal ▲ strategic allocation of resources through active fiscal policy and expenditure restructuring by maximizing the use of revenue resources.

Focusing on safety, cleanliness, welfare, livelihood, and the future of Jeju, the province explained that the budget was prepared under the policy of expanding fiscal investment to drive the expansion of the regional gross domestic product by making the best use of available resources.

The revenue budget of the general account consists of local taxes of 1.5224 trillion won, non-tax revenue of 157 billion won, local allocation tax of 1.4291 trillion won, national subsidies of 1.1708 trillion won, local bonds of 322.5 billion won, and compensation income of 302.8 billion won, despite decreases in local taxes and local allocation tax, to implement the joint agreement of the standing policy council with the provincial council on September 10.

The expenditure part was prepared at 4.9047 trillion won, a 1.42% decrease compared to the previous year.

In addition, through intensive expenditure restructuring such as public officials’ annual leave compensation, basic administrative operating expenses (office management expenses, domestic travel expenses), business promotion expenses, and internal administrative expenses, 8.5 billion won was cut compared to the previous year.

Within policy projects, 12.8 billion won in current expenses, 22.2 billion won in local subsidies, and 17.9 billion won in consignment project expenses to public institutions were reduced.

Mandatory expenses such as personnel expenses, repayment of borrowed principal and interest, fund and special account transfers, subsidies to transportation companies, and private consignment fees for the Environmental Resource Circulation Center were fully reflected, improving the practice of budgeting shortages during supplementary budgets every year.

The scale of the special account is 925.2 billion won in total, an increase of 77.6 billion won compared to the previous year, with 390.3 billion won (including 30 billion won in local bonds) allocated to special accounts for water supply and sewage and public bus public enterprises, and 534.9 billion won allocated to 15 other special accounts.

Hyun Dae-sung, Director of the Planning and Coordination Office, diagnosed, “Nationally, economic uncertainties such as export decline and economic growth rate slowdown are expected to continue next year, and in Jeju’s case, the economic outlook is not favorable as the economic downturn phase has continued since peaking in 2018, leading to weakened consumer sentiment and a decrease in tourists.”

He added, “The preparation of next year’s budget focused on overcoming the COVID-19 crisis, making efforts to secure available resources through cost reduction within the administration and adjusting the implementation timing of projects that cannot be executed. We will prioritize budget allocation to projects that can be executed first in the first half of next year and concentrate administrative power on revitalizing the local economy.”

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