President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday referred to as on the Nationwide Meeting to approve subsequent 12 months’s funds, unveiling a document 728 trillion received ($525 billion) spending plan — an 8.1 % improve from this 12 months — amid what he described as sweeping modifications in world commerce and the fast rise of synthetic intelligence (AI). The proposal represents the Lee administration’s first full-year funds and the most important in Korea’s historical past.
Delivering a coverage deal with on the Meeting, Lee underscored that the 2026 funds will prioritize the AI business. He introduced that 10.1 trillion received can be allotted to speed up Korea’s leap towards changing into one of many world’s high three AI powers, greater than tripling this 12 months’s AI-related funds of three.3 trillion received.
“This can be a strategic funding that balances future development with fiscal sustainability within the age of synthetic intelligence. I ask for the Nationwide Meeting’s energetic cooperation,” Lee stated.
Of the ten.1 trillion received, the president stated 2.6 trillion received can be invested in integrating AI throughout industries, every day life and public companies, whereas the remaining 7.5 trillion received will go towards workforce coaching and AI infrastructure improvement.
The federal government additionally plans to speculate about 6 trillion received over the following 5 years to speed up AI-driven transformation in core industries, together with robotics, vehicles, shipbuilding, residence home equipment, semiconductors and manufacturing.
President Lee Jae Myung delivers a coverage speech on the federal government’s funds proposal for subsequent 12 months on the plenary session of the Nationwide Meeting in Seoul, Tuesday. Joint Press Corps
The president additionally revealed that funding for analysis and improvement in superior strategic sectors, together with AI, content material creation and protection industries, can be expanded by 19.3 % to a document 35.3 trillion received. He pledged to create a 150 trillion received Nationwide Development Fund over the following 5 years to nurture high-tech industries and be certain that the advantages of financial development are broadly shared.
On protection, Lee stated subsequent 12 months’s navy funds will rise by 8.2 % to 66.3 trillion received. He vowed to modernize typical weapons programs with cutting-edge AI-driven capabilities and swiftly rework the navy right into a “good elite pressure” to strengthen a self-reliant nationwide protection.
“We are going to foster the protection business as a number one manufacturing sector within the AI period by discovering startups with superior applied sciences and increasing R&D funding, laying the inspiration for Korea to change into one of many world’s high 4 protection exporters,” he stated.
Whereas lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Occasion of Korea take heed to President Lee Jae Myung’s coverage speech on the federal government’s funds proposal for subsequent 12 months, the seats of the primary opposition Individuals Energy Occasion stay empty attributable to their walkout on the Nationwide Meeting in Seoul, Tuesday. Yonhap
Lee additionally burdened the federal government’s accountability to guard probably the most weak segments of society from the disruptive results of fast technological change, pledging focused, age-specific help packages to handle demographic shifts.
“Simply as we succeeded in industrialization and informatization, we are going to open the door to the AI period along with the good folks of Korea,” Lee stated, calling for bipartisan cooperation to go the funds throughout the authorized deadline.
In the meantime, the primary opposition Individuals Energy Occasion (PPP) boycotted Lee’s coverage speech, holding a protest on the Nationwide Meeting on Tuesday. The PPP convened an emergency assembly on the Meeting to denounce a choice by a particular prosecutor to request an arrest warrant for former ground chief Choo Kyung-ho.
The particular prosecutor requested the arrest of Choo for allegedly obstructing a parliamentary vote to finish martial regulation final December, accusing him of aiding and abetting the revolt.
PPP ground chief Music Eon-seog accused the administration of “destroying the judiciary and shifting towards one-party dictatorship to erase the opposition and halt the president’s personal trial,” vowing to “battle by all means crucial towards the reckless Lee regime.”
