Gwangju Bank Supports COVID-19 Affected Businesses... Business Agreement with Gwangju Shinbo

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Bank (President Song Jong-wook) announced on the 27th that it signed a “Financial Support Business Agreement to Overcome COVID-19 Damage” with the Gwangju Credit Guarantee Foundation on the 26th.

Under this agreement, Gwangju Bank will make a special contribution of 1 billion KRW to the Gwangju Credit Guarantee Foundation, which will use the funds to provide a total of 15 billion KRW in special guarantees.

The support targets are small businesses and small merchants located in the Gwangju area who have suffered damage due to COVID-19, recommended by either Gwangju Bank or the Credit Guarantee Foundation, with support up to 100 million KRW per company.

The loan period is within 5 years, and the guarantee rate borne by customers will be preferentially applied at 0.7% to 1.0% regardless of credit rating, while the loan interest rate will also receive a special preferential rate of up to 0.7 percentage points (p).

Starting with this agreement with the Gwangju Credit Guarantee Foundation, Gwangju Bank plans to make early contributions to the Jeonnam Credit Guarantee Foundation, the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation to help ease the difficulties of affected companies.

Song Jong-wook, president of Gwangju Bank, said, “We hope to be a support for small businesses and small merchants in the region who are experiencing difficulties such as decreased sales due to the spread of COVID-19, and furthermore, to become a spark that revives the local economy. We will continue to fulfill our role as the representative bank of Gwangju and Jeonnam by achieving mutual growth through various financial supports for local residents.”

Meanwhile, since the 3rd of this month, Gwangju Bank has been implementing special support targeting local small and medium-sized enterprises and individual business owners engaged in travel, lodging, and food services, as anxiety in the local community and economic downturn have intensified. It has injected emergency management stabilization funds totaling 100 billion KRW with a limit of 500 million KRW per company and applied a special preferential interest rate of up to 1.3 percentage points.

Additionally, for affected customers holding loans maturing soon, the bank extends the loan period by applying a 1 percentage point reduction in loan interest rates without separate principal repayment and also implements a grace period for installment payments.

Gwangju Bank is leading efforts to practice win-win management and revitalize the local economy by making special contributions of 500 million KRW to the Gwangju Metropolitan City Alley Market Special Guarantee Support Project and 50 million KRW to the Buk-gu Office Small Merchant Special Guarantee, supporting small merchants in the Gwangju area facing business difficulties due to COVID-19.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.