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SEOUL, March 30 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's national debt is expected to rise 19 percent in 2009 as the government is to increase its bond issuance to fund its large-scale supplementary budget, the nation's finance ministry said Monday.
According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, national debt is expected to top 366.9 trillion won (269.6 billion U.S. dollars) this year, up from 308.3 trillion won (226.5 billion U.S. dollars) of the previous year.
With the forecasted figure, the nation's per-capita debt is to stand at 7.53 million won (5,530 U.S. dollars), while it marked 6.34 million won (4,660 U.S. dollars) a year earlier.
The increase of the debt amount will also pull up its portion in gross domestic product from 32.5 percent to 48.5 percent, which the government aims to gradually reduce to 30 percent until 2012.
The increase is attributed mostly to a massive amount of bonds that the government plans to issue for the record-high extra budget worth 28.9 trillion won, or 21.2 billion U.S. dollars, for this year, according to the nation's experts.
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