Naju Mayor Kang In-gyu Focuses on Inspecting Economic and Industrial Policies in Response to COVID-19

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yuk-bong] Naju City, Jeollanam-do announced on the 19th that Mayor Kang In-gyu conducted a focused inspection of the progress of economic and industrial policy implementation through the 6th team leader meeting of the ‘COVID-19 Response Regional Economic Countermeasures Headquarters’ held at the city hall small conference room on the 18th.

To overcome the crisis of the local economy stagnated due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the city officially launched the Regional Economic Countermeasures Headquarters on the 1st of last month and has been discovering and implementing 33 policies across five countermeasure sectors (livelihood stabilization, economic industry, living SOC, agricultural stabilization, and overall countermeasures).

Mayor Kang focuses on checking the progress of local economic revitalization policies through weekly Monday team leader meetings and understanding the overall economic trends accordingly.

The economic and industrial sector policies reported at the meeting include six projects: ▲ Emergency support for Naju City’s small and medium-sized enterprise development funds ▲ Support for small business owners’ resident income support projects ▲ Support for special projects such as local employment response ▲ Small business owners’ public utility charges projects ▲ Interest subsidy support for small business owners ▲ Support for Jeonnam youth job-seeking activity allowances.

The city is promoting a resident income support project worth 2 billion KRW to stabilize the management of small business owners facing difficulties such as domestic demand recession and lack of funds due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, loans are provided at a low interest rate of 1% per annum, up to a maximum of 50 million KRW per person, targeting small business owners who are actual residents registered in the resident registration and have business sites within the jurisdiction.

Through the first selection, 8 companies have been confirmed and promoted with 389 million KRW so far, and the review and decision process for 13 second-round applicants requesting 668 million KRW is also underway.

The public utility charges support project for small business owners with annual sales of 300 million KRW or less, including electricity, gas, and water bills, is worth a total of 1.36 billion KRW (540 million KRW from provincial funds, 820 million KRW from city funds), and 747 million KRW in Naju Love gift certificates was paid for 2,493 cases in the first round.

Along with this, the city is increasing the small and medium-sized enterprise development fund support from the existing 400 million KRW to 500 million KRW to stabilize SME management.

Additionally, the loan maturity for companies receiving funds is extended by one year, and the interest (2.0% per annum) is supported accordingly.

To facilitate smooth fund support, support agreements have been signed with eight local financial institutions (Gwangju, Nonghyup, KDB, Livestock Cooperative, Woori, Hana, Shinhan, KB).

As of the 15th of this month, eight SMEs have applied for development fund support worth 2.75 billion KRW.

Special support for unpaid leave workers and special employment type workers who could not work due to COVID-19 also draws attention.

The local employment response special support targets workers at workplaces with fewer than 100 employees, special-type workers, freelancers, etc., who have been unable to work for five or more days (unpaid leave) since February 23rd.

The support period is a total of 40 days (about 2 months) based on unpaid leave days, with 25,000 KRW per person per day, supporting up to 500,000 KRW per month (maximum 1 million KRW).

The city plans to pay special support funds to 151 applicants from last month by mid-this month.

Mayor Kang In-gyu said, “I hope that we will do our best to implement economic policies so that we can overcome not only the severe management difficulties of local SMEs and small business owners caused by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic but also the silent worries and pains of unpaid leave workers, special employment, and freelancers who are in the blind spots of employment insurance.”

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