Lee Jae-myung "Emergency Fund of 150 Billion Won for Ultra-Low Credit Borrowers"

Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung is explaining the emergency supplementary budget related to COVID-19 at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government briefing room on the 20th.

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Lee Jae-myung, Governor of Gyeonggi Province, announced that the province will support a total of 150 billion KRW through its own projects, including 100 billion KRW in microloans for extremely low-credit borrowers and 50 billion KRW in emergency funds for vulnerable groups, to overcome the emergency economic situation caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

On the 20th, Governor Lee held a press conference at the Gyeonggi Provincial Government Office and announced a supplementary budget plan worth a total of 1.1917 trillion KRW to respond to COVID-19. This supplementary budget in March is the first in 10 years since 2010.

Governor Lee said, "As COVID-19 prolongs, it threatens not only our safety but also our lives. An unprecedented economic crisis is coming," adding, "The streets are empty, and self-employed people have been hit hard. To urgently respond to COVID-19, which all residents and citizens are struggling against, we have prepared the first supplementary budget for 2020."

The province increased the general account budget by 1.1917 trillion KRW, which is 5.1% of this year's original general account budget, in this supplementary budget. The total supplementary budget amounts to 28.23 trillion KRW, of which the general account is 24.7862 trillion KRW. The increased 1.1917 trillion KRW will be covered by 597.5 billion KRW from the province's own resources such as proceeds from the sale of the seed management office site and 594.2 billion KRW from national subsidies and others.

This supplementary budget will be intensively invested in three areas: ▲stabilizing people's livelihoods and supporting regional economic recovery ▲supporting small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners ▲expanding infectious disease response systems.

The province will first inject 705.8 billion KRW to support residents' livelihood stability and revive the regional economy.

Representative projects include ▲temporary child care support and emergency welfare support such as living support for low-income groups (461.1 billion KRW) ▲microfinance support and emergency aid to overcome COVID-19 (150 billion KRW) ▲issuance of local currency and expansion of public jobs and other projects (94.7 billion KRW).

In particular, the microfinance support targets residents who have lived in the province for more than one year among 875,653 people with credit ratings of grade 7 or lower who are struggling to make a living due to COVID-19.

The province will immediately provide an unsecured loan of 500,000 KRW per person at an annual interest rate of 1% for five years (extendable for another five years if desired). In urgent cases, loans up to 3 million KRW will be provided. If the demand is high and the 100 billion KRW is exhausted, the province plans to allocate an additional 100 billion KRW.

Emergency support for vulnerable groups will provide 500,000 KRW per household in local currency to 100,000 households among vulnerable groups who have had no income for more than one month or whose sales have decreased by 50% or more due to COVID-19 but are excluded from the government's emergency welfare program. The province plans to distribute the support funds through towns, townships, and neighborhoods as soon as possible after the supplementary budget is confirmed.

Governor Lee emphasized, "The reason Gyeonggi Province focuses on unsecured microloans for extremely low-credit borrowers rather than cash support is because we cannot support everyone due to limited resources," adding, "This is a desperate measure to help those who really need small amounts of cash."

He continued, "Even with 200 billion KRW, if we pay 500,000 KRW each, only 400,000 people can benefit, which is only 3% of the 13.6 million residents of Gyeonggi Province," adding, "We judged that it is more necessary to help those who have to use high-interest loan companies or cannot even do that in the blind spots of support to at least put food on their tables immediately."

The province will provide a total of 46.1 billion KRW in financial support for small business owners and small and medium-sized enterprises that have been hit hard economically, including 29.3 billion KRW in special funds for fostering small and medium-sized enterprises and 16.8 billion KRW for small business owners and traditional market funds.

Governor Lee said, "Gyeonggi Province regards protecting the lives and safety of residents as the top priority," and promised, "We will carry out the announced projects without delay to relieve the worries of residents as soon as possible."

This supplementary budget plan was submitted to the provincial council on the same day and will be reviewed at a one-point extraordinary session on COVID-19 held from the 23rd to the 25th.

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