Gov’t already spent 59% of 2017 budget

The Korean government has spent more than half of its planned budget in the first six months of the year as part of its efforts to front-load spending to prop up the economy, the finance ministry said Thursday.

Budget spending by the government and public institutions for the January-June period stood at 166.3 trillion won ($144.2 billion), up 2.8 trillion won from the earlier target of 163.5 trillion won, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.

It accounted for 59 percent of the 281.7 trillion won that the government had set aside for early fiscal execution out of the country’s 400 trillion-won budget for 2017, the ministry said.

The central government ministries used 139.2 trillion won over the six-month period, while provincial governments spent 100.5 trillion won.

Last month, the government submitted a supplementary budget to the National Assembly for approval, though Parliament has yet to review the budget bill due to a political standoff.

Yonhap