Gwangju City and Related Organizations Sign Business Agreement for Customized Support of Cultural Content Companies

On the afternoon of the 7th, Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, took a commemorative photo after signing a "Customized Support Agreement for Cultural Content Companies" with the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, Gwangju Bank, and the Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Small and Medium Business Administration in the city hall business room. From left to right in the photo of the agreement document are Song Jong-wook, President of Gwangju Bank; Lee Yong-seop, Mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City; Jung Yoon-mo, Chairman of Korea Technology Finance Corporation; and Lee Hyun-jo, Director of Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration. Photo by Gwangju Metropolitan City.

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] On the 7th, Gwangju Metropolitan City signed a business agreement on the ‘Gwangju City Cultural Content Company Customized Support System’ with the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, Gwangju Bank, and the Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration at the City Hall Business Room.

This agreement was prepared to improve the financial environment for cultural content companies, which face difficulties in securing loans from financial institutions due to their business structure centered on intangible assets such as characters and intellectual property rights.

Following the signing of the agreement, the Korea Technology Finance Corporation will provide technology guarantees worth 10 billion KRW annually for local cultural content companies.

In particular, guarantee certificates will be issued to enable loans within a corporate credit limit of up to 100 million KRW regardless of the company’s sales volume.

Additionally, for companies using this support system, the guarantee fee, which is usually about 1.2% of the issued guarantee amount, will be fully supported.

The support ratio is up to 0.5% by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, 0.5% by Gwangju Bank, and the remaining difference is supported by Gwangju City.

The Gwangju-Jeonnam Regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration will implement an export and sales channel support voucher project next year, providing up to 100 million KRW per company for cultural content companies.

The project reflects the characteristics of local cultural content companies, which have long planning and production periods and lack expertise in the export process after production. It will select 12 types of voucher-participating companies for focused support in areas such as planning, design development, product promotion, buyer discovery, exhibition participation, and promotional video production.

Gwangju City will select professional service institutions such as accounting firms to provide consulting throughout the entire process from loan application to guarantee screening and loan execution, ensuring support projects that companies can feel directly. Related announcements and application submissions will be conducted in January next year.

In addition, the Korea Technology Finance Corporation plans to open the ‘Gwangju Cultural Content Finance Center,’ which provides one-stop support from specialized financial consultation to guarantees for cultural content companies, in consultation with Gwangju City.

Jung Yoon-mo, Chairman of the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, said, “Globally, the cultural content industry has emerged as a growth engine for future society,” and added, “Gwangju is a region with great expectations as a leading city representing cultural content in Korea.”

Prior to this agreement, Gwangju City conducted a status survey on cultural content companies to derive policy demands desired by local companies and recruited related organizations capable of collaboration to prepare support measures.

Furthermore, to reflect the results of the ‘2020 Gwangju Cultural Industry Status Survey’ conducted by Research Korea from August to November, which showed that companies’ top policy demands were first financial support and second sales channel support, the Korea Technology Finance Corporation and Gwangju Bank were involved in financial support, and the Regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration, which oversees small business support, participated in sales channel support to maximize the project’s effectiveness.

Mayor Lee Yong-seop said, “With a specialized support system focused on the completeness, success potential, and know-how of cultural content, it will be a great help to many companies,” and added, “I hope the cultural content industry, along with artificial intelligence, will play a key growth engine role in preparing Gwangju’s future food sources.”

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