Ulsan City Kicks Off Year-Long Campaign to Secure National Funding... Holds Strategic Budget Acquisition Report Meeting

2024 National Budget Securing Target Amount: 3.6 Trillion Won

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongguk Lee] Ulsan City is starting to secure momentum for the great journey of ‘Creating a New Great Ulsan.’

Ulsan City Hall.

On the 23rd at 9 a.m., the city will hold the ‘2024 National Budget Securing Strategy Report Meeting’ chaired by Mayor Kim Doo-gyeom in the large conference room on the 2nd floor of the city hall main building.

Ulsan City achieved the largest-ever national funding last year.

In the second year of the 8th elected term this year, the city plans to newly set national budget targets to secure momentum for priority projects and concentrate all capabilities on discovering new projects linked to central government policies and securing budgets to solve regional issues.

The 2024 national budget securing target is 2.6 trillion KRW for national projects and 1 trillion KRW for general grants, totaling 3.6 trillion KRW.

This is an increase of 254.8 billion KRW (7.6%) compared to the 3.3452 trillion KRW secured in 2023, with national projects increased by 250.8 billion KRW and general grants by 4 billion KRW respectively.

In particular, the 2024 target excludes the construction cost of the Hamyang-Ulsan Expressway project, which has already been completed within the region (973.8 billion KRW in 2023), moving away from a scale-centered target to a practical amount reflecting only project costs within the Ulsan region.

According to the 2022?2026 National Fiscal Operation Plan, the government announced last year that to establish sound fiscal management, it will lower the average annual growth rate of fiscal expenditure to about 4.6% during 2022?2026 and will strongly promote expenditure restructuring as much as possible.

Accordingly, the city plans to discover core projects that respond to the government’s key policies and prepare meticulous strategies to secure increased national budget for next year.

The new projects discovered by Ulsan City ahead of the report meeting for 2024 amount to 95 cases totaling 175.8 billion KRW, continuing projects are 687 cases totaling 2.4477 trillion KRW, and the total scale excluding general grants is 2.6235 trillion KRW.

Mayor Kim Doo-gyeom said, “Securing the national budget for next year is not easy due to the government’s austerity fiscal policy, but this year is the second year of the 8th elected term, an important time to actively move toward the goals promised with citizens,” adding, “Since a new target amount has been presented, we will put all our efforts into achieving the maximum national budget securing results again this year following last year by maintaining close cooperation with the local political circles.”

The 2024 national budget will be applied for to central ministries by the end of April, submitted to the Ministry of Economy and Finance by the end of May, the government budget bill will be submitted to the National Assembly by September 1, and after deliberation and resolution by the National Assembly, it will be finalized on December 1.