Floor leaders Rep. Kweon Seong-dong (left) of the People Power Party and Rep. Park Chan-dae of the Democratic Party of Korea hold up their signed agreements on the extra budget at the National Assembly on Thursday. (Yonhap) South Korea’s parliament is set to pass a 13.8 trillion won ($9.7 billion) extra budget bill at its plenary session Thursday, to aid recovery in regions affected by the massive wildfires in March and address uncertainties posed by US tariff threats.
It would be the first supplementary budget greenlighted by the parliament for this year. The plenary session was scheduled at 8 p.m. Thursday.
This followed a bipartisan compromise reached between the liberal Democratic Party of Korea and conservative People Power Party. Earlier on Thursday, the parties had agreed to increase the budget by 1.6 trillion won from the initial 12.2 trillion won that gained Cabinet approval on April 18.
Following the bipartisan agreement, an additional 400 billion won will be spent to allow local governments to issue more vouchers, dubbed “community-based gift certificates,” to boost consumer spending.
The revised supplementary budget plan also reflected a 200 billion won addition to make up for the discount of agricultural and marine goods from regions affected by the March wildfire, as well as 800 billion won to prop up the construction of public housing facilities, roads and railways.
Moreover, the budget cut led by the Democratic Party was partially recovered. About 50 billion won will be allocated for special expenses for the prosecution, and 4.5 billion won will be allocated for the state-run Board of Audit and Inspection.
These would add to the government’s goal of supporting regions affected by the historic wildfires that ravaged 104,000 hectares of land, equivalent to over 145,000 soccer fields, in the southeastern region, addressing trade uncertainties and beefing up domestic consumption.
People Power Party’s Floor Leader Rep. Kweon Seong-dong said the extra budget would “provide new hope to the victims of the wildfires,” adding the party worked to “restore the budget for livelihood and investigation” that was cut by the rival party.
Kweon added that his party worked to minimize the increase of the state’s debt.
The Democratic Party of Korea’s Floor Leader Rep. Park Chan-dae said the increase might not be enough to support the livelihood of the people. Park also said his party had envisioned a 35 trillion won supplementary budget bill.
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