South Korea's parliament approves fourth extra budget of 7.8 trillion won

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's parliament approved a supplementary budget of 7.8 trillion won (5.23 billion pounds) on Tuesday to aid households and small businesses facing mass closures amid tight social distancing restrictions to curb coronavirus outbreaks.

The passage of the fourth supplementary budget this year would raise the government debt to 43.9% of gross national product from 43.5%, the finance ministry said in a statement.

Total fiscal spending to fight the pandemic amounts to about 277 trillion won, according to the ministry. ($1 = 1,160.9100 won)

(Reporting by Heekyong Yang and Cynthia Kim; Editing by Alex Richardson)