무디스 “미래대응기금으로 국채 발행 축소, 국가신용도에 우호적”

Korea's credit rating agency, Moody's, has assessed the new "Future Response Fund" and its related government bond issuance reduction as favorable for the country's creditworthiness. According to a Moody's report published on June 6th, the agency believes the Korean government's budget for next year, at 82.09 trillion won, reflects a positive outlook.

This is an increase of 12.8% from the previous year's budget, which was based on the annual budget and includes a 162 trillion won fund for future response measures. Of this fund, 15 trillion won will be allocated to reduce government bond issuance, thus decreasing the increase in national debt. Moody's described the future response fund as "not large in comparison with the budget size, but the 15 trillion won earmarked for new bond issuance reduction signals a commitment to suppressing leverage (debt)."

The agency also expressed a positive view on the government's financial outlook and national debt projections. For next year's integrated financial statement, which shows a surplus of 59.5 trillion won, Moody's predicts that this will be the first budget surplus since 2018. The ratio of government expenditure to GDP is -0.1%, meaning the government's deficit is 0.1% of the country's GDP.

This represents a "budget balance" target, compared to the previous year's deficit of 3.9% and the supplementary budget of 3.8%. Moody's also expects the government's debt-to-GDP ratio to decline from 51.6% in 2023 to 48.3% in 2027, before slightly increasing to 49.0% in 2030. This is lower than Moody's forecast of 59% for 2030.

In its assessment of the government's budget for next year, Moody's noted that "the expansion of industrial capacity and growth-oriented strategies in the context of strong artificial intelligence (AI)-driven semiconductor demand" could lead to "excessive spending and a further year of fiscal expansion and debt growth" if the situation persists.

Moody's also analyzed recent proposals for public institution reform, stating that "merging, eliminating redundancies, and streamlining the agencies is expected to improve overall efficiency."