Lawmakers at the National Assembly today are going over the multi-billion dollar supplementary budget bill aimed at creating quality jobs to help boost those depressing jobs figures.
This progress at the parliament comes after an over-one-month-long standstill with rival political parties blocking each other's moves.
And we have our Kim Mok-yeon on the line for us with more details,...
So Mok-yeon, so what's expected from the budget committee meeting today?
Ji-yoon.
The parliamentary special committee on budget and accounts kicked off a general meeting at 10 a.m., beginning its long-delayed review of the proposed extra budget, aimed at addressing the nation's serious problem of youth unemployment.
Some six other parliamentary standing committees,... such as the National Policy Committee, and the Agriculture, Food, Rural affairs, Oceans and Fisheries committee have also begun their pre-screening of the budget this morning.
The standing committees have until tomorrow to finalize their reviews as the special committee on budget and accounts will refer the extra budget bill to its subcommittee Thursday so that it can finally be put to a vote during Friday's plenary session.
So the different committees don't have much time to review the proposal.
I hear that such concerns have been raised?
Yes, there's really not much time until the vote on Friday.
That date was announced by the rival parties on Monday as they finally ended their 42-day-long standoff caused by partisan disputes over an online opinion rigging scandal, and a set of contested bills including the budget proposal.
But with such a tight schedule, combined with the complex procedure for different committees to review the bill, many lawmakers are unhappy with the process, saying they don't have enough time to properly review the budget bill.
Several lawmakers from the ruling party have been speaking of concerns over the hasty screening and some from the main opposition party are refusing to finish the review by Friday, insisting that they will evaluate the bill based on principles and standards regardless of the deadline.
So with this, questions have also been raised over whether the full floor budget vote will successfully take place on Friday.
This has been Kim Mok-yeon, reporting from the National Assembly.
