Seoul, Dec 21 (IANS): South Korea's parliament on Thursday approved the budget bill for next year, amounting to 656.6 trillion won (502.9 billion US dollars), the media reported.

The final budget package was down 300 billion won (229.8 billion dollars) compared to the government proposal, but up 2.8 per cent from this year's budget, Xinhua news agency reported.

Under it, next year's fiscal expenditure on health, social welfare and employment would grow 16.9 trillion won (12.9 billion dollars) to 242.9 trillion won (186.1 billion dollars) compared to the previous year.

Fiscal spending on education would decline 6.5 trillion won (5 billion dollars) to 89.8 trillion won (68.8 billion dollars), but defense expenditure would increase 2.6 trillion won (2 billion dollars) to 59.6 trillion won (45.7 billion dollars).

Expenditure on research and development (R&D) would tumble to 26.5 trillion won (20.3 billion dollars) next year from 31.1 trillion won (23.8 billion dollars) this year.