The Culture Ministry‘s budget has surpassed 7 trillion won ($6.05 billion) for the first time.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced Wednesday the passage of its budget for next year at 7.15 trillion won, marking a 4.2 percent increase from last year’s 6.8 trillion won budget.

In 2022, the Culture Ministry plans to expand the support for cultural content production and hallyu, globally promoting Korea. It will also work on the recovery of various culture, sports and tourism fields hit by the COVID-19 pandmeic. It will support balanced development of culture across Korea and aim to expand the culture scene.

The 2022 budget includes 2.4 trillion won earmarked for support for culture and arts.

The ministry will inject 170 billion won into a fund for hallyu production, spend 49 billion won toward international cooperation and export of cultural content and invest 30 billion won in cultural content. It has also earmarked 20 billion won for metaverse content production and 6 billion won for intellectual property-related content creation and more.

The ministry pledged to expand the regional tours by national art troupes and to invest in areas that are culturally underserved. It will also launch Art Culture Lab, a specialized platform for supporting artists.

The tourism industry hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic will receive 1.4 trillion won toward its recovery.

The ministry has allocated 49 billion won for encouraging smart tourism, 54 billion won for inbound tourism marketing, 32 billion won for promoting Korean tourism abroad, 24 billion won for improving tourism infrastructure, 46 billion won for strengthening tourism competence of Korea, 65 billion won for loans for tourism-related companies and 77 billion won for tourism startups.

Meanwhile, the Culture Ministry will commit 1.8 trillion won for the sports sector.

It will work on boosting local sports clubs for people to enjoy sporting activities in their daily lives, spending 26 billion won toward that goal. Some 20 billion won will be set aside for funding sports leagues, 150 billion won for supporting the sports industry and 5 billion won for sports tech projects and more.