Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's Budget for Next Year 711.1 Billion KRW...Significant Increase in Drug Prevention Budget

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety's budget for next year has been set at 711.1 billion KRW, a 5.1% increase from this year's budget of 676.5 billion KRW.

On the 31st, the Ministry announced, "The 2024 budget focuses on implementing the existing national agenda of 'creating a safe food environment and supporting biohealth innovation growth,' along with the newly added priority of 'strengthening the narcotics safety network.'"

Amid growing social awareness about narcotics, the budget for building and strengthening the narcotics prevention and rehabilitation safety network has more than doubled (from 17.4 billion KRW to 37.7 billion KRW).

The budget for strengthening narcotics safety management and supporting the Narcotics Eradication Movement Headquarters has been set at 7.2 billion KRW and 15.9 billion KRW respectively, which is more than double and quadruple this year's amounts. New budgets have been allocated for narcotics safety management technology development (2.7 billion KRW) and for the operation of the Safety Evaluation Institute supporting narcotics investigations (1.6 billion KRW). Budgets of 3.8 billion KRW and 2.2 billion KRW will be invested in the establishment and operation of the integrated narcotics management system and online food and drug safety management operations, respectively.

Through this budget, the Ministry plans to expand addiction rehabilitation centers, currently only in Seoul, Busan, and Daejeon, to all 17 metropolitan cities and provinces nationwide next year. Additionally, the target population for narcotics misuse prevention education will be expanded from 340,000 to 2.05 million people, and an AI-based smart information collection and monitoring system for narcotics will be established to strengthen monitoring. On-site monitoring of suspected narcotics handlers using big data from the integrated narcotics management system, including medical institution prescription details, will also be expanded from 300 sites this year to 1,300 sites next year.

Other Ministry of Food and Drug Safety budgets include 186 billion KRW for creating a safe food and healthy dietary environment, 159.1 billion KRW for expanding the foundation for biohealth safety and innovation growth, and 91.4 billion KRW for proactively establishing a future-ready food and drug safety management environment.

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