S. Korea spends 59 pct of 2017 budget in H1

SEJONG, July 6 (Yonhap) -- The South 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 frontload 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 (US$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 has 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.

Also, the ministry will do its best to execute an 11.2 trillion-won extra budget as soon as possible to boost domestic demand and ease the tightened job market.

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

brk@yna.co.kr
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