After a fourth supplementary budget, South Korea’s debt against gross domestic product (GDP) would near 44 percent with liabilities stretched to record 847 trillion won ($728 billion).

With national debt at 846.9 trillion won, the ratio against GDP shot up to 43.8 percent, up from 38.1 percent last year and higher than past aftermath of financial crises in 1998 and 2009, data from the Ministry of Finance and Economy showed.

Debt per individual also surged to 16.4 million won from 12.8 million won in 2017.

Debt jumped this year after the government expanded fiscal spending four times beyond the original budget of 512.3 trillion won to fight fallouts from COVID-19. The government has upped spending by 11.7 trillion won in March, 12.2 trillion won in April and 35.1 trillion won in July. Earlier this month, the government has endorsed a fourth extra budget of 7.8 trillion won as the economy faces its first annual contraction since the wake of 1997 Asian financial crisis.

The National Assembly Budget Office advised stricter guidelines on public finance management after review of the fourth extra budget scheme. South Korea and Turkey are the only countries among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to lack public finance guidelines.

By Cho Jeehyun

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