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| Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho speaks while briefing the media on the government's 2024 budget plans at Government Complex Sejong, Thursday. Yonhap |
By Lee Min-hyung
The government will allocate a budget of 200 billion won as a subsidy for foreign direct investment here in 2024, a move to help facilitate more capital inflow, particularly in the nationally strategic tech sectors of chips, secondary batteries and displays.
According to the budget plan announced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, this will be an increase of 300 percent or 50 billion won this year. The move is aimed at strengthening Korea's global footing in the promising tech industries.
The government will spend 2.16 trillion won next year to secure national competitiveness in the tech-savvy industries. The allocated budget will fund a diverse range of projects, including a loan program for small- and medium-sized enterprises focusing on research and development of the aforementioned tech sectors.
The government will also increase its spending to attract more foreign workers next year. The number of those eligible for work permits will increase to 622,000 next year from 495,000, in an effort to alleviate the labor shortage here. A budget worth 5.7 billion won will be allocated for this.
To attract talent, degree programs for students from developing countries will be expanded, while at the same time, strengthening programs to attract students to study in Korea. The government has allocated 129.4 billion won budget to attract overseas talent next year, which is around 30 billion won more than this year.
A special employment-training program will begin for the first time here with a budget of 3 billion won, targeting a group of 1,500 foreign residents married to Korean nationals.
Multicultural families will benefit more according to budget plans for 2024, as households in the low-income bracket will be able to receive up to 600,000 won from the government each year. Those with elementary and middle school aged children will be given 400,000 won and 500,000 won annually for each child. The government expects more than 60,000 people from multicultural families to be eligible.
The government has also set aside a 30 billion won budget to minimize social disparities and increase educational support for children from multicultural families.
The enhanced support for multicultural families reflects the fact that a growing number of people now come from diverse cultural backgrounds here. According to data from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, the number of multicultural households is on a gradual rise. The figure topped 1 million in 2018 and rose to 1.12 million as of 2021.
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