The government subsidy programs to local governments mean that the government supports the local governments (municipalities) to carry out certain public projects by financial aids. 974 programs of 27 ministries belong to government subsidy pro-grams in the year of 2010 and the size of these programs is estimated at 31,649.5 billion won, which accounts for 10.8 percent of total government expenditure.

    Pursuant to Article 54 of National Finance Act, the head of each central govern-ment agency shall submit the results of execution of the national subsidies granted to local governments to the National Assembly. Since the government subsidy pro-grams of the local governments are composed of nearly 1,000 programs, however, it is not easy for the National Assembly to grasp details of the individual subsidy pro-grams.

    With these points in mind, the National Assembly Budget Office published this handbook in order for National Assembly to identify key information of the gov-ernment subsidy programs to local government. This handbook provides general overview of various government subsidy programs in terms of program size, finan-cial resources, program purposes, subsidy procedures, etc. This handbook will be surely made good use during the budget deliberation and settlement session in the National Assembly.