Haenam Love Gift Certificates Create a 105 Billion Won Economic Recovery Path

Increase in Gift Certificate Distribution and Transactions Drives Formation of Local Communities and Economic Revitalization

In April of last year, the Haenam Love Gift Certificate issuance ceremony was held. (Photo by Haenam-gun)

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Hyun] Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do (Governor Myeong Hyun-gwan) announced on the 6th that the Haenam Sarang Gift Certificate has sold 61 billion KRW in just over a year since its issuance, gaining great popularity among residents and steadily settling into the local community.

The successful establishment of the Haenam Sarang Gift Certificate is the result of a high level of civic awareness to overcome the COVID-19 crisis, cooperation from gift certificate agencies such as NongHyup, and local government efforts including securing affiliated stores.

Haenam-gun plans to expand the issuance scale of the gift certificates to 105 billion KRW this year and focus administrative efforts to ensure practical consumption activation by encouraging usage within the region.

With the launch of the 7th local government administration, preparations for issuing local currency have been thorough, based on two perspectives: expanding welfare projects linked to farmers' allowances and revitalizing local commercial districts, as well as the residents' hometown affection and community spirit. This included case studies of local governments implementing gift certificates, expert consultations, invited lectures, resident briefings, surveys for gift certificate introduction, and the establishment of ordinances for issuing and operating the Haenam Sarang Gift Certificate.

However, during the investigation of other city and county cases, it was revealed that more than 60% of the local currency issuance was distributed through NongHyup and other agricultural and livestock cooperative affiliated stores, showing limitations in revitalizing local gift certificates. To support traditional markets, self-employed businesses, and small merchants within the region, the need for a kind of business restriction on the economic departments of agricultural, fishery, and livestock cooperatives was raised.

In response, although agricultural, fishery, and livestock cooperatives were not included in the category of semi-large or large stores as defined by the Distribution Industry Development Act and thus had no regulations for business restrictions, through repeated persuasion and understanding with local cooperatives, the heads of local cooperatives sympathized with the purpose of issuing the gift certificates. An agreement was reached with Haenam-gun to completely restrict the enrollment of agricultural, livestock, and fishery cooperative affiliated stores at the initial stage of the gift certificate implementation, with the premise of reviewing the lifting of this restriction after one year.

The recent expansion of usage at agricultural, livestock, and fishery cooperative affiliated stores was decided to resolve frequent cases where residents in areas with few affiliated stores had limited places to use the gift certificates. Many residents receive daily necessities and agricultural materials through these cooperatives, but due to the restriction regulations, even if they received local currency, there were few places to spend it, causing difficulties in using the gift certificates.

A Haenam-gun official stated, “For the activation of the gift certificates, residents must be able to use them without inconvenience. Haenam Sarang Gift Certificate is the only local currency that restricts use at agricultural, livestock, and fishery cooperatives, and to resolve this, partial usage has been allowed. We will prepare various management stabilization measures to address damages in some industries due to the expansion of affiliated stores at agricultural, livestock, and fishery cooperatives.”

Meanwhile, on the 29th of last month, Haenam-gun held a meeting with the Haenam-gun branch, local cooperatives, Haenam-Jindo Livestock Cooperative, and Haenam Fishery Cooperative, signing a regional economic coexistence agreement to cooperate in establishing a virtuous cycle structure for the local economy.

The agreement includes provisions such as not forcing farmers and fishermen to use their public interest allowances exclusively at agricultural, livestock, and fishery cooperative affiliated stores, and strictly not handling items outside designated categories.

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