A Closer Look at Next Year's 657 Trillion Won Budget Proposal

Plenary Session Held This Afternoon to Approve Budget Agreement
Government Stance Maintained on Sound Fiscal Policy and R&D Restructuring
Democratic Party Budget Requests Including Local Currency Also Reflected

A budget bill worth 657 trillion won is expected to be finalized on the 21st. The ruling and opposition parties agreed to hold a plenary session at 2 p.m. on the 21st to process next year's budget bill and related subsidiary bills. This comes 19 days after the legal deadline for processing was missed.

The ruling and opposition parties initially agreed to maintain the total budget of 657 trillion won submitted by the government but decided to reduce 4.2 trillion won from the government proposal and then reflect the results of the National Assembly's review. The most notable feature of this budget agreement is that the government's sound fiscal policy principle was upheld. Initially, the Democratic Party of Korea argued that "the total expenditure growth rate of next year's budget should be readjusted to over 6%" citing difficult economic conditions. However, the final framework of the 657 trillion won budget was maintained as is. Yoon Jae-ok, acting party leader and floor leader of the People Power Party, said at the Supreme Council meeting that "we were able to uphold the Yoon Seok-yeol administration's sound fiscal policy" and evaluated that "maintaining fiscal soundness was the primary principle, and election-related populist budget spending was minimized."

The National Assembly plenary session Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

The biggest issue in this year's budget was the research and development (R&D) budget. The government’s policy of restructuring was maintained, but a compromise was reached to mitigate side effects such as alleviating employment insecurity among researchers. The government submitted a budget proposal that cut about 5.2 trillion won from this year's R&D budget of 32.1 trillion won. During the National Assembly review process, about 600 billion won was added. Acting leader Yoon said, "Although there was a net increase of 600 billion won in the R&D budget, it is fortunate that the government's planned R&D budget restructuring was upheld in a broad sense," adding, "With the abolition of the 'divvy-up' style R&D budget, the R&D budget now has a healthier and more efficient structure, which will undergo continuous increases in the future and make our country a scientific and technological powerhouse and a winner in advanced future industries."

Additionally, although not included in the agreement between the ruling and opposition floor leaders the previous day, the 181.4 billion won budget related to nuclear power plants was restored as per the original government proposal. This budget had been completely cut at the standing committee stage.

In specific individual projects, the opposition party's demands were substantially reflected. After negotiations, the ruling and opposition parties agreed to increase the budget for Saemangeum-related projects and local currency projects by 300 billion won each. These projects were requested by the Democratic Party.

Furthermore, Hong Ik-pyo, floor leader of the Democratic Party, introduced at the policy coordination meeting that "in the area of livelihood, budgets were reflected for energy support funds for small business owners, loan interest subsidies, pilot projects for nursing hospital caregiving support, medical expense support for rare disease patients, and support projects for people with developmental disabilities." He also introduced that youth-related budgets such as temporary youth monthly rent support and the Tomorrow Employment Deduction, as well as budgets for the extension of Subway Line 5 to Gimpo Geomdan, agricultural product supply stabilization support, social enterprise support, and Korea Electric Power Corporation University support were achieved under the Democratic Party's leadership. It is also known that some cuts were made to special activity expenses for prosecutors.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party announced on the same day that it would attempt to process the "Itaewon Disaster Special Act" by changing the agenda during the plenary session.

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