The government has drastically increased its 2024 budget for support to Ukraine in a bid to assist post-war reconstruction efforts and provide more opportunities for South Korean firms to take part in such projects.

According to the government’s 2024 budget plan released on Tuesday, the government has earmarked 520 billion won, or some 400 million U.S. dollars, for Ukraine-related spending, up more than eightfold compared to this year’s nearly 63 billion won.

Half of such spending will go toward humanitarian assistance for the war-torn nation, including the provision of medical supplies, while some 130 billion won will be injected via international agencies and another 130 billion won will go toward reconstruction.

The government also raised its official development assistance budget by two trillion won for next year to six-and-a-half trillion won, achieving at an early stage its goal of expanding that budget to six-point-two trillion won by 2030.

The government earmarked more than one-point-nine trillion won for assistance to the Indo-Pacific region and Africa compared to this year’s one-point-35 trillion won in light of the growing strategic importance of the regions.