Incheon City to Prepare Additional Budget for COVID-19 Response in April... Prompt Execution of Business Funds for Small Business Owners

Proactive Economic Support Measures Promoted at the 1st Emergency Economic Meeting

Incheon Mayor Park Nam-chun is presiding over the 'COVID-19 Emergency Economic Countermeasure Meeting' on the 19th.
[Photo by Incheon City]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Incheon City has decided to prepare a supplementary budget to respond to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

On the 19th, the city held the 1st Emergency Economic Measures Meeting to minimize the damage to the local economy caused by the spread of COVID-19 and made this decision.

The city plans to prepare the supplementary budget within April to stimulate consumption and revitalize the local economy, and will submit the budget proposal to the city council within this month.

Even before the supplementary budget is prepared, the government funds allocated will be promptly injected into the livelihood economy using the priority execution system.

In addition, the special guarantee management stabilization fund for small business owners, supported at an annual interest rate of 1.5% for five years, will be expanded from the original 39.8 billion KRW to 300 billion KRW.

The scale of the emergency management stabilization fund supporting small business owners and SMEs has been set at 251.8 billion KRW, and additional operational personnel will be hired to ensure swift execution.

As of the 18th, the city has supported a total of 2644 cases amounting to 97.9 billion KRW in emergency management stabilization funds, including 109 cases of 26.5 billion KRW in management stabilization funds and 2535 cases of 71.4 billion KRW in small business management stabilization funds.

Along with this, the city will also promote local tax reduction measures to lower rental fees for facilities owned by public corporations and public institutions, and to spread the "Good Rent" movement in the private sector.

The city plans to announce a comprehensive plan for the recovery of the livelihood economy soon based on the discussion results from this day.

In response to the COVID-19 situation, the city formed an economic countermeasure team consisting of six divisions led by the head of the Job and Economy Headquarters last month, and is operating an economic countermeasure situation room at Michuhol Tower in Songdo-dong.

Economic support measures include emergency management stabilization fund support for SMEs and small business owners, improvement of social enterprise support policies, emergency management stabilization fund support for affected tourism companies, a 10% increase in cashback for the local currency "Incheon e-eum," reduction of rental fees for public property, and the spread of the private sector "Good Rent" movement.

Mayor Park Namchun stated, "Recognizing this as a more serious emergency situation than the 2008 financial crisis, we will prepare extraordinary measures and promote swift and bold policy implementation."

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