The South Korean government wants to raise the country's national budget by nearly ten percent next year.
A substantial portion will go toward supporting the administration's job creation drive and bridging the widening wealth gap.
Kim Ji-yeon reports.
South Korea's Ministry of Economy and Finance said Tuesday that it wants to actively deal with the country's structural issues and pursue expansionary fiscal measures to boost job creation as well as future innovative growth.
It says government spending in 2019 will increase by nearly ten percent from this year to 424-point-2-billion U.S. dollars.
That's the highest level since 2000, excluding 2009, when South Korea was struggling due to the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
The ministry expects next year's gross income to amount to nearly 434-billion dollars,... up by some eight percent from this year.
Despite pursuing expansionary measures... the ministry says it'll likely have a limited impact on South Korea's fiscal balance and government debt due to improvements in the country's tax revenue,... which the government tallied at nearly 15 billion dollars in June.
"Following increases in tax revenue, the government plans to increase expansionary fiscal spending to boost the number of jobs, revitalize the economy and improve the livelihoods of the public."
The lion's share of next year's budget -- around 146-point-three billion dollars -- is to be injected into boosting the health, welfare and labor sectors,... while nearly 64 billion is set aside for the education sector.
The ministry has also increased the amount of state research-and-development for future core technologies as well as boosting the platform economy, an ecosystem which depends on the internet, computation and data.
That's been raised to 18-point-4-billion dollars,... up more than a half-a-billion dollars from this year.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy says it plans to increase its budget to around seven billion dollars next year,... nearly twelve percent more than its budget for this year.
This as the ministry is seeking to effectively deal with trade protectionist measures, convert South Korea to safe and clean energy and strengthen investments for sectors related to innovative growth.
The budget proposal is to be submitted to the National Assembly later this week for approval.
Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.
