Park Hongkeun: "We Will Use AI to Quickly Eliminate Fiscal Inefficiencies"

The government will use artificial intelligence (AI) to reduce inefficient fiscal spending and take steps to rationalize expenditures by listening more broadly to the private sector.

At the 3rd Fiscal Management Strategy Council meeting, which he chaired at the Government Complex Seoul on the afternoon of October 26, Minister of Planning and Budget Park Hong-keun said, "We will expand participation by private-sector experts and civil society, and use AI to identify inefficiencies more quickly and precisely."

Minister of Planning and Budget Park Hongkeun answers questions during the 2026 comprehensive parliamentary audit held by the National Assembly’s Finance and Economy Planning Committee on the 23rd. Yonhap News

First, the government will build and deploy by December a system called the "Spending Efficiency AI Assistant (Spending Magnifier)." It will precisely analyze external assessments and criticisms from the media, the National Assembly, and the Board of Audit and Inspection by project size and type to identify key areas for spending efficiencies.

The government will also broaden channels for private-sector input. It plans to increase the number of private-sector members on the Spending Efficiency Task Force (TF) from 83 to around 100, incorporating a wider range of recommendations from experts and civil society. In particular, it will launch the TF earlier than in previous years, beginning in November, and fully reflect the results of its discussions in the 2028 budget proposal.

The government will also substantially improve access to the Public Participatory Budgeting Program, introduced in 2018. It will hold monthly "On-the-Go Public Proposals," with government officials visiting communities to gather opinions, and introduce a new "AI Writing Assistant" to help people draft proposals online. The number of young members aged 19 to 34 on the Public Participation Panel will double, from 120 to 240, and the government will also hold a youth policy idea contest.

The Ministry of Planning and Budget said that, since the TF was launched late last year, it has already incorporated spending-efficiency measures covering 88 projects and totaling KRW 44.2 trillion into the process of drafting the 2027 budget proposal. Key examples include eliminating the automatic linkage that mechanically allocated local education finance grants according to a fixed percentage of domestic tax revenue, resulting in a reduction of KRW 32.5332 trillion, and addressing the inversion in which unemployment benefits exceeded the minimum wage that people could earn by working, saving KRW 1.4808 trillion. The government has also streamlined similar and overlapping projects and revised support methods to reflect on-the-ground demand.

A paradigm shift in the fiscal spending management system was also a key item on the meeting's agenda. The government recognized that, because spending had been managed based on the amount of funds disbursed, it had not closely tracked whether budget funds ultimately reached their intended beneficiaries. It therefore decided to fully shift its management criteria to focus on "actual spending." The new approach will first apply to private-sector subsidy programs and research and development (R&D) grants.

Minister Park stressed, "Ultimately, the nation's finances belong to the people. Every penny must be spent for their benefit without waste, and the process must be transparent and open to scrutiny. I will see this through so that, around this time next year, people can feel that 'my voice changed how the nation's finances are managed.'"

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.