Seoul, April 4 (IANS) South Korea’s national debt rose around 10 per cent in 2022 from a year earlier amid increased spending to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, data showed on Tuesday.
The sovereign debt, which covers bond sales and financial borrowing by central and provincial governments, amounted to 1,067.7 trillion won ($813 billion) last year, up 97 trillion won from the previous year, according to a report on the 2022 national settlement.
The debt-to-GDP ratio came to 49.6 per cent last year, up from 46.9 per cent tallied in 2021, reports Yonhap News Agency.
The figure translates into a debt of 20.6 million won per person in South Korea, surpassing the 20 million-won level for the first time.
The country’s population was estimated at 51.62 million in 2022.
The settlement report, approved by the Cabinet, will be submitted to the National Assembly by end-May after a review by the state audit agency.
The government’s total revenue amounted to 617.8 trillion won last year, up 8.2 per cent from a year earlier. Its total expenditures rose 13.5 per cent on-year to 682.4 trillion won in 2022, following the country’s increased pandemic-related spending.
South Korea implemented two rounds of extra budget in 2022 to cope with the pandemic, each estimated at 16.6 trillion won and 55.2 trillion won.
The consolidated fiscal balance, a key gauge of fiscal health, logged a deficit of 64.6 trillion won last year, widening from a shortfall of 30.5 trillion won a year earlier.
The managed fiscal balance, a measure of fiscal soundness calculated after excluding the balance of social safety funds, posted a deficit of 117 trillion won, compared with a shortfall of 90.6 trillion won in 2021.
After the national settlement, the country will have as much as 2.8 trillion won in available funds that can be used for the potential creation of an extra budget without approval from Parliament.
The country’s liabilities — a total of bond sales, financial borrowing and unconfirmed liabilities from future pension payments — came to a record high of 2,326.2 trillion won last year, up 130.9 trillion won from a year earlier, the report said.
The country’s state assets reached 2,836.3 trillion won last year, down 29.8 trillion won on-year.
Net assets, the gap between assets and liabilities, reached 510 trillion won, down 24 per cent, or 160.7 trillion won, over the period.
–IANS
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