Parliamentary Budget and Tax Research Body Goes over Budget Draft for 2005
- Reps. Kim J.P. and Kim J.B. co-chairs key event prior to legislative approval of the budget

The National Assembly Budget and Tax Research Society co-chaired by Reps. Kim Jin-pyo and Kim Jong-bu held a discussion on "The Livelihood of the Nation and Its Major Details and Issues" on Dec. 3 at the Small Conference Hall of the Parliamentarians Building in Yeouido, Seoul.
The scale of this year's general account budget has been set at 131.5 trillion won, up 9.5 percent from last year(120.1 trillion won). Including a special account budget of 64.2 trillion won, total budget allocated for this year would amount to 168.7 trillion won, up 11.7 percent.
The operational scale of 57 funds this year would amount to 320 trillion won, up 7 percent from this year. Total expenditure including the general account, special account and funds would amount to 208 trillion won, up 6 percent from last year.
The major areas of government funding would include projects related to the construction of new Busan harbor, Gwangyang harbor, and the expansion of Incheon International Airport, infrastructures to help make the country a logistics hub in Northeast Asia. The allocated funds amount to 1,050.2 billion won compared to 840 billion won last year. A total of 110 billion won has been allotted for the construction of basic infrastructure in free economic zones including Incheon, Busan and Gwangyang to pay for land and cash grants to attract foreign investment in the zones.
Another 499 billion won has been set aside for various energy saving projects with 596 billion won going to the projects related to the development of energy including overseas resources exploration such as oil.
The government allocated 6,985.1 billion won to upgrade the nation's high-tech intelligence capabilities including early warning intelligence plane with 4.5 percent of the national defense budget set aside for defense related R&D projects. The government has also budgeted 100 billion won to pay for the relocation of U.S. troops from Yongsan, Seoul to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, and 160.9 billion won to support Korean troops stationed in Iraq.
The government substantially increased its South-North Cooperation Fund to 500 billion won from 171.4 billion won this year. Some 28.5 billion won will go to the construction of the Gaesung Industrial Estate in North Korea this year, with 142.1 billion won to go to various projects related to the linkage of roads and railroads between the two divided Koreas.
Rep. Kim Jin-pyo of the ruling Uri Party, who presided over the forum as co-chairman of the parliamentary study group, said the domestic economy has been sluggish due to contracted investment and consumption and to make the situation worse, exports that have been a growth engine for the economy are being faced with various adversities including high oil prices, downturn in IT market and the weak dollar. Furthermore, major players in the economy have been losing their confidence in the economy ridden with uncertainties, he said.
The government and the National Assembly should get together and show to the people their will to save the economy so that they might recover the confidence to resolve the mounting economic difficulties and let the economy back on tract for growth.
The function of policies has become critical now that the private sector has been hit the hardest, the former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance-Economy Minister said.
The government should fire up the dull domestic economy with budgetary policies by expanding a base for growth within the limit of the sound mid-to-long term budget policies, Kim said.
He said the forum would be able to hold a significant discussion on the participatory government's mid-to-long term national development policies with a special attention to the national budget draft as it is the first top-down budget prepared this year being the initial year of the five-year national budget management. nw