Raised Budget for 2019 Incline to Invest on Welfare over SOC.

Seoul, August 29 (Engineering Daily) -- The budget for 2019 has been announced but it is expected the allocation for SOC will be excluded again.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport(MOLIT) in Korea has assigned 3.854billion USD for 2019 budget. The new budget has increased by 7.4% compared to 3.583 billion USD the budget for this year.

MOLIT has reported the 2019 budget has increased in total by having 2.527 billion USD fund and actual 90.262 million USD raise in budget.

However, it is anticipated the budget for SOC will decrease in 2019 and the  budget totalizes to be 13.265 billion USD where the amount is 409.52 million USD reduced in 2018 budget.

The budgets for road construction, railway construction, and water resources amount to 4.819 billion USD, 21.29 billion USD and 982 million USD accordingly. The amounts are diminished altogether compared to this year's budgets.

Unlike the reduction phenomena in SOC, the budget for fund and welfare will be escalated.

The housing fund in 2019 quantifies to 2.356 billion USD and it is by 2552 million USD raised compared to its counterpart of this year. Especially, housing account fund has the most expanded by 94.4% in the fund.

In sequence, welfare budget including basic living cost is apportioned to be 1510 million USD where it is by 494.3 million USD raise

Kim Jae Jung the director of planning at MOLIT said "The SOC budget for 2019 has a meaning that the investment in SOC has been re-evaluated following the reduction ripple in the field. We are to proceed the SOC investment according to the variables we would confront in the future."

The budget for urban regeneration and regional development is expected to rise with the movement of 2019 budget. But the tangible impact of the movement in the two fields seems to have a slim possibility.

The specific amount for urban regeneration is 264.1 million USD approximately but the amount has been dispersed into small-scaled projects. This is the reason the anticipation has been low on its success.

Consequently, the associates in construction are interested in the upcoming changes in budget procedures in the future.