South Korea’s finance ministry on Friday announced an $8.6 billion (12.2 trillion won) supplementary budget to accelerate wildfire recovery, bolster national AI capacity and shield exporters from rising trade protectionism. Approved during a Cabinet meeting the same day, the package includes $2.3 billion (3.2 trillion won) for disaster response, $3.1 billion (4.4 trillion won) for AI and trade support and $3 billion (4.3 trillion won) for economic relief. The budget will be submitted to the National Assembly on April 22 for review.

The government said the spending will be funded by $2.9 billion (4.1 trillion won) in surpluses and reserve funds, with the remaining $5.7 billion (8.1 trillion won) to come from new bond issuance. Core allocations include $987 million (1.4 trillion won) in wildfire recovery aid, $1 billion (1.5 trillion won) for GPU infrastructure and domestic LLM development, and a $17.9 billion (25.4 trillion won) expansion in policy finance to support companies facing tariff-related disruptions. The budget also earmarks funds for semiconductor cluster infrastructure, small business credit relief and emergency labor stabilization measures.