'Let's Manage the Nation's Finances with Our Own Hands'... National Participatory Budgeting Open for Submissions Until the End of Next Month

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Seon-hee] The 'Citizen Participatory Budget Project,' a system that allocates budget to projects proposed by citizens, will accept submissions until the end of next month.

According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance on the 6th, the government plans to accept citizen proposals through the Citizen Participatory Budget website until the end of February. The submitted proposals will undergo eligibility review by each ministry and will be requested to be included in the '2023 Budget Plan' by the end of May.

Citizen proposals can be made for all financial projects that the central government can undertake. However, projects subject to preliminary feasibility studies, such as large-scale social overhead capital (SOC) projects, are excluded. If a citizen proposal is deemed 'eligible' by a ministry, a commemorative gift will be awarded. If the proposal is actually reflected in the government budget plan, an excellent proposal certificate along with a commemorative gift and a gift certificate worth 100,000 KRW will be awarded.

This year, a total of 71 Citizen Participatory Budget projects have been reflected in the budget, with a total of 142.9 billion KRW in funding expected to be invested. Since the system was first introduced in 2018, its scale has steadily expanded.

The Ministry of Economy and Finance stated, "In addition to online submissions through the website, we will also conduct 'Visiting Citizen Proposal' activities targeting groups facing difficulties such as youth, to listen to opinions more deeply and strive to discover financial projects that practically help each group."

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