Jongmyungrae "Supporting Environmental Companies to Overcome COVID-19 Crisis... Easing Burden on R&D Institutions"

Minister of Environment Jongmyongrae / Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] On the 20th, Minister of Environment Cho Myung-rae announced, "We will prepare and implement measures to support environmental industry companies in overcoming the economic crisis caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and to alleviate the burdens on environmental research and development (R&D) performing organizations."

On the same day, Minister Cho held a meeting with environmental department heads of media companies at the Korea Press Center and said, "We are doing our best to support small and medium-sized environmental industry companies to overcome the economic crisis caused by COVID-19."

The Ministry of Environment will defer the principal repayment of environmental loans for nine months and expand the environmental development loan working capital to 31.5 billion KRW for environmental industry companies.

For environmental R&D performing organizations, the private sector burden will be reduced to 20% for small enterprises and 35% for medium enterprises, and the payment deadline for technology fees will also be deferred for two years.

Minister Cho stated, "As a result of the policy, the occupancy rate of the environmental industry research complex and the number of new employees have increased," adding, "The National Water Industry Cluster has also been revitalized, with its occupancy rate rising to 38%."

The Ministry of Environment plans to promote budget negotiations to help maintain employment in small companies and expand loans, while discovering and planning inter-ministerial collaborative projects to foster green new industries and discussing with related organizations, academia, and research institutes.

Minister Cho said, "We will promote innovation in the green industry to solve environmental problems and make it a new growth engine for the economy," and added, "We will expand investment and support in the four major core industries: clean air, water, climate, and ecology."

Regarding the Green New Deal, Minister Cho stated, "We are creating inter-ministerial measures that can simultaneously satisfy climate change response and economic recovery," and emphasized, "We are not considering construction projects from past green growth policies at all."

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