The budget proposal of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) for next year amounts to 7.8 trillion won, marking a 10% increase from the previous year. The proposal emphasizes investments in supporting young artists and expanding influence overseas.
The proposed budget for 2026 under Minister Choi Hui-young of the MCST has reached 7.7962 trillion won, reflecting a 10.3% increase (729 billion won) compared to 2025. This is the most significant increase since 2020.
By sector, the budget for culture and arts will increase by 256.4 billion won to a total of 2.6388 trillion won, while the content sector sees a 26.5% increase to 1.6103 trillion won. The tourism sector budget increases by 9.4% to 1.4740 trillion won, and the sports sector is allocated 1.6795 trillion won.
Notably, to smoothly execute the core projects of the new government, the MCST has strategically allocated its budget to three main themes: 1) Promoting the national strategic industrialization of the content industry for opening the 300 trillion won era of ‘K-Culture’, 2) Expanding opportunities for enjoying culture and arts and strengthening artistic creation and welfare, 3) Creating a sports environment enjoyed by all citizens and a tourism environment everyone can enjoy.
The ministry plans to significantly increase its investment in the K-Content Fund to foster a second ‘K-Pop Demon Hunters,’ boosting it from 295 billion won to 465 billion won. They’ll expand the strategic fund for the content AI transition, a new future strategic sector (500 billion won), and the mother fund contribution to strengthen investment in the content industry. Support for producing online video services (OTT) for broadcasting also rises from 30.3 billion won to 39.9 billion won.
The budget for mid-budget film production support is doubled from 10 billion won to 20 billion won, and the AI content production support sees a dramatic increase from 8 billion won to 23.8 billion won.
Currently dispersed overseas cultural bases like the Korean Cultural Center and Korea Tourism Organization overseas offices will be centralized, focusing on major cities like Frankfurt, Jakarta, and Dubai, with a 259.7 billion won budget allocated to gradually establish a ‘Global K-Culture Hub’ and expand collaborative projects.
Support for young artists will also be significantly expanded. New support for K-Art young creators will see an investment of 18 billion won, and 6.8 billion won will be allocated to fostering young art groups. Following the first Tony Award win for a K-Musical, support for K-Musicals will increase dramatically from 3.1 billion won to 24.1 billion won, and support for K-Literature will see a dramatic rise from 9.9 billion won to 20.6 billion won.
Additionally, to promote growth in the sports and tourism industries, policy financial support will be significantly expanded. A new tech fund worth 10 billion won will be established to foster technology innovation companies in the sports sector. In tourism, a loan of 640.5 billion won and a tourism company development fund of 73 billion won will be created. Particularly, for the first time, the tourism company development fund will introduce regional tourism activation and AI specialization fields to simultaneously promote innovation and improve future competitiveness in the tourism industry.