[Economic Outlook] National Assembly Begins Full Discussion on 2nd Supplementary Budget... Who Gets How Much?

(Photo) [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] This week, the National Assembly will begin full-scale discussions on the government's submitted second supplementary budget.

The ruling party is pushing for nationwide disaster relief funds as its party policy. Considering the increase in compensation for small business losses and the Hope Recovery Fund, they argue that the supplementary budget expenditure should be increased by 4 to 4.5 trillion won. However, while the government acknowledges the need to increase support for small business damages and budgets for quarantine and vaccines, it maintains the view that the national support fund should be kept at around 80%.

The ruling party and government are reviewing plans to increase the second supplementary budget by 1 to 4 trillion won for small business damage support and vaccine/quarantine-related expenses. This adds response budgets for the 4th level social distancing in the metropolitan area to the supplementary budget submitted to the National Assembly just before the 4th wave of COVID-19. This means the size of the second supplementary budget could increase by at least 1 trillion won from the government's original proposal of 33 trillion won.

On the 21st, the Bank of Korea will release the 'June Producer Price Index.' Previously, the May Producer Price Index was recorded at 108.50 (2015 level 100), 0.4% higher than April's 108.06. This marks the seventh consecutive month of increase since last November, the longest rise since the '7 consecutive months' from August 2016 to February 2017. Due to still high oil and raw material prices, it is estimated that the June producer price also rose for the eighth consecutive month.

The Financial Services Commission will hold a regular meeting next week to review companies that have applied for registration under the Online Investment-Linked Finance Act (OnTu Act). So far, four P2P (peer-to-peer) finance companies registered under the OnTu Act are Rendit, 8Percent, PeopleFund Company, and Winkstone Partners. P2P finance is a service that connects loan applicants and investors through an online platform and charges fees.

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