Government ministries have collectively requested more than 500 trillion won in total for next year’s budget and funds.

The Finance Ministry said Friday that budget and funding requests from all government agencies for 2021 were compiled and came to 542-point-nine trillion won. That’s six percent higher than this year’s budget. 

The request for an increase in funding has remained in the six percent range for four consecutive years. 

The combined budget requests were 364-point-eight trillion won, up three-point-nine percent, from this year’s budget, while funding requests rose ten-and-a-half percent to 178-point-one trillion won.

By specific fields, budget requests for health, welfare, employment, industries and energy grew in amount from this year while requests for education dropped.

In particular, budget and funding requests for establishing and promoting digital and untact industries, stabilizing management and supporting growth of small firms as well as online exports and revitalizing renewable energy grew more than 12 percent to 26-point-six trillion won. 

The Finance Ministry plans to finalize a budget plan based on the requests and submit the plan to the National Assembly by September 3.