Government Ministries Request 195 Trillion Won for Next Year’s Budget

The sum for next year’s budget (general and special accounts) that governmental ministries have asked for totaled to some 195.3 trillion won, increasing by five percent from this year.

The Ministry of Planning and Budget (MPB) announced yesterday that the 53 governmental ministries and organizations (including the National Assembly Secretariat and the Office of Court Administration) requested 132.2 trillion won for general accounts, increasing by 11.7 percent from this year’s budget, and 63.1 trillion won for special accounts, decreasing by 6.8 percent, for next year’s budget.

The budget, which is the total of general and special accounts, is to be scaled at 195.3 trillion won, increasing by 9.3 trillion won (5 percent) from this year.

This increasing rate is somewhat lower than the 25.3 percent in 2001, 24.5 percent in 2002, 28.6 percent in 2003 and 24.9 percent in 2004 (based on the requested sum).

MPB Minister Kim Byung-il said, “By applying the top-down system, where each of the ministries can freely make up the budget within the MPB’s fixed limit, starting this year, the rate of increase for the demanded budget fell sharply.”

The fields in which the ministries expanded next year’s budget were unification and foreign affairs (17.3 percent), national defense (12.9 percent), environment (11.9 percent), and social welfare (10.4 percent).

Meanwhile, the National Assembly Secretariat (NAS) requested 348.5 billion won, a 19.9 percent increase from this year’s budget, drawing attention.

The National Assembly requested NAS personnel expenses, lowering them by 4.8 percent, and 15.8 billion won for a new project in developing parliamentary policies, increasing its budget by 41.4 percent altogether.

An MPB official explained, “With the exclusion of the Gender Equality Ministry, which is taking over the child-care affairs the Health-Welfare Ministry had administered, and National Statistical Office, which is conducting a population census next year for the first time in five years, the National Assembly showed the highest budget increase.”

Meanwhile, the requested amount to employ the 57 funds increased by 6.7 percent to 304.6 trillion won, and the total request for the general and special accounts and the funds reached 499.9 trillion won.

The MPB will examine the details of each ministry’s request and will decide on the government’s budget and fund allocation by October 2 before submitting it to the National Assembly.

Chi-Young Shin higgledy@donga.com