Ministry of the Interior and Safety to Allocate 864.7 Billion KRW in Fire Safety Grants to 17 Cities and Provinces Next Year... Infrastructure Expansion

More Support for Local Governments That Faithfully Execute Fire Safety Grant Tax

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 29th that it will allocate 864.7 billion KRW in fire safety grants to 17 cities and provinces nationwide next year to expand fire and safety infrastructure.

Of the fire safety grants, 480.4 billion KRW will be used for the personnel expenses of firefighters to address the shortage of fire personnel, and 384.3 billion KRW will be used as project funds to expand fire and safety facilities and strengthen safety management in cities and provinces. Personnel expenses will be allocated in order of regions with high performance in supplementing on-site firefighter shortages, such as Gyeonggi, Gyeongbuk, Jeonnam, and Chungnam.

Project funds will be allocated as 38.4 billion KRW for special demands such as fire helicopters, fire aerial ladders, and small-scale high-risk facilities, and 345.9 billion KRW for fire and safety sectors including the expansion of firefighting equipment and safety facilities. The cities and provinces receiving the largest allocations are Gyeonggi (34.4 billion KRW), Gyeongbuk (33.8 billion KRW), and Gyeongnam (29.9 billion KRW), which have the highest investment needs in the fire sector.

The fire safety grants are allocated applying revised standards considering proper execution management and policy budget support. If funds are used outside the designated projects, the amount used will be deducted from the grant calculation so that cities and provinces investing more in designated fire and safety sectors can receive more grants.

In particular, Changwon-si, which independently handles fire affairs, will receive expanded budget support, adding half of the metropolitan city average to some indicators in the grant calculation, resulting in an increase of 2.1 billion KRW from the previous year to 6.3 billion KRW. Changwon-si had a similar population and number of fire targets as Ulsan Metropolitan City but was lacking investment in the fire sector.

Kim Jong-han, Director of Safety Management Policy, said, “We expect that support through fire safety grants will gradually improve the fire and safety infrastructure of cities and provinces,” and added, “We plan to continuously improve and develop systems and laws so that fire safety grants can reflect not only the efforts to improve fire services in cities and provinces but also the demand for fire and safety investments.”

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