Government to Spend 4.3 Billion Won on Real Estate Measure Publicity Campaign

The Korean government said on August 9 that it will spend a total of 4.3 billion won, including about 3.7 billion won in media advertisement costs, to publicize a real estate measure which is scheduled to be announced at the end of this month.

The government held a cabinet meeting presided over by President Roh at Cheong Wa Dae on that day and discussed and passed an expenditure plan for the 2005 general account that was submitted by the Ministry of Planning and Budget.

According to the expenditure plan, a total of 4.4 billion won from the 2005 general account’s extra-expenses fund will be spent on a publicity campaign for a real estate measure. Of that money, the Ministry of Finance and Economy is supposed to use 655,570,000 won, and the government information agency is supposed to use 3.7 billion won.

The publicity expenses used by the Ministry of Finance and Economy will be spent on public hearings, online publicity activities, and opinion surveys, and the government information agency will spend all its allocated money on making advertisements and running them in the media.

Last year, about one billion won was earmarked for ads on the relocation of the administrative capital, including producing ads, but only part of it was spent. A total of 1.8 billion won, including an ad production cost of approximately 200 million won, was spent on advertising expenditures of relocation policies of public institutions.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the government information agency allotted most of its advertising costs for running ads only on TV, and no additional money has been earmarked for newspaper advertisements. This is creating controversy.

An official from the government information agency said that though it has not been confirmed, 2.6 billion won would be spent on TV, and 200-300 million won would be spent on ads in other media, including newspapers, and that there might be no newspaper advertisements if a TV-oriented ad plan is set up.

Regarding this, Kim Chang-ho at the government information agency said, “It is not easy to decide which to concentrate on and what to choose from as there are a lot of newspaper companies. That is why we are delaying our choice. It is not that there won’t be any newspaper ads, it is just that importance and expenses do not always coincide.”

In the meantime, this year, the government information agency spent 1.2 billion won on TV ads and 170 million won on newspaper ads to publicize the relocation policies of public institutions.

Kang-Myoung Chang tesomiom@donga.com