SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's public sector deficit hit a record high in 2025, driven by increased fiscal spending to boost the country's economy, central bank data showed Friday.
The public sector balance, gauged as total revenue minus total expenditure, registered a deficit of 83.1 trillion won (60.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2025, marking the largest shortfall since the Bank of Korea (BOK) began compiling the data in 2007.
The public sector encompasses the central government, local governments, and social security funds as well as non-financial and financial public corporations.
Total revenue for the public sector gained 4.7 percent from a year earlier to 1,192.1 trillion won in 2025, while total spending advanced 5.5 percent to 1,275.2 trillion won.
The faster growth in expenditure than revenue was led by two supplementary budgets aimed at stabilizing people's livelihoods, the government's proactive fiscal policy, and higher health insurance benefit payments.
After posting surpluses for six consecutive years from 2014 to 2019, the public sector logged a deficit for six straight years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The central government's deficit worsened to an all-time high of 90.1 trillion won in 2025, up from 83.8 trillion won in 2024.
Local governments narrowed their deficit to 2.0 trillion won in 2025 from 15.5 trillion won a year earlier, supported by a substantial increase in local allocation taxes from the central government.
The social security funds saw their surplus shrink from 41.8 trillion won in 2024 to 32.0 trillion won in 2025 due to the rapidly aging population, which raised benefit payouts.
Non-financial public corporations posted a deficit of 22.1 trillion won in 2025, up from 16.7 trillion won in the prior year.
Financial public corporations swung to a deficit of 0.9 trillion won in 2025 from a surplus of 5.1 trillion won in the previous year. ■
