south koreas government has planned a tighter budgetexpenditure increase for next year marking a policy turnaround as it looks to focus more on fiscal health than stimulus the 2023 budget bill announced tuesday by the ministry of economy and finance called for a 52 increase in government spending to 639000 trillion won 47475 billion that would be slower than the 89 increase to krw6077 trillion for the 2022 budget which was later expanded to krw6795 trillion as additional spending was aimed at stimulating an economy hit by the pandemic the new budget bill is meant to make the governments expansionary fiscal policy more sound the ministry said in a statement the ministry expects the governments fiscal deficit to narrow to 26 of gross domestic product in 2023 from an estimated 51 this year it expects the nationaldebttogdp ratio to be at 498 in 2023 compared with an estimated 497 in 2022 the government has increased its spending by an annual average of 87 for the past five years until 2022