Foreign ministry's budget set at 4.19 trillion won for 2024

The building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is shown in this Oct. 4 file photo. Korea Times file

The foreign ministry said Thursday its budget for 2024 has been set at 4.19 trillion won ($3.21 billion), a 24.8 percent increase from this year.

The spending plan, passed by the National Assembly earlier in the day, comes with a nearly 39.2 percent year-on-year hike of 2.79 trillion won in the sectoral budget for official development assistance (ODA), the ministry said.

The ODA budget is expected to help implement various foreign policy initiatives being pushed for by the government, including those under the Indo-Pacific strategy, the ministry added.

The budget for humanitarian assistance more than doubled to 740.1 billion won to support developing countries, and better respond to natural disasters and other humanitarian crises, as well as the prolonged war in Ukraine.

The ministry said next year's aid budget for the African region rose 28.5 percent to 306.6 billion won. South Korea plans to host the South Korea-Africa summit in the first half of 2024.

The ministry plans to spend part of the approved yearly budget to establish a new research institute for economic security and technologies, the ministry added.

The finalized budget is lower than the ministry's initial request of 4.28 trillion won. (Yonhap)