Gwangju City Announces Changes in Systems and Policies Starting New Year

A Total of 25 Cases in 7 Major Areas Including Economy, Transportation, and Environment

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 29th that a total of 25 new or revised systems and policies across seven major sectors, including welfare, economy, transportation, and environment, will be implemented in 2021.

First, ▲In the welfare sector, in addition to the livelihood support and funeral expenses provided for the stabilization of life for the May 18 Democratic Merit recipients, a new Democratic Honor Allowance has been established, expanding the recipients eligible for living support payments.

The coverage of the Basic Livelihood Security System will be expanded by exempting the support obligation criteria for households with elderly or single-parent families, providing an additional deduction of 200,000 KRW on earned income for elderly people aged 65 to 75, and relaxing the general property application (4.17%) criteria for automobile assets.

The financial asset criteria for beneficiaries will be raised from 20 million KRW or less to 25 million KRW or less, and the income criteria for support obligors will be adjusted from 140-160% of median income to 150-170%, strengthening the Gwangju-type Basic Livelihood Security System for low-income households not covered by statutory support. Emergency support for crisis households in welfare blind spots will also be increased from 1 million KRW to 2 million KRW per occurrence.

As part of childbirth encouragement policies, birth congratulatory money, mother boxes, and infant hospital expenses previously supported will be expanded into the Gwangju Birth and Childcare Allowance, providing a lump sum birth congratulatory payment of 1 million KRW and a childcare allowance of 200,000 KRW per month (up to 24 months).

To maintain employment for pregnant women and create family-friendly workplace environments, 840,000 KRW of employer burden costs arising from maternity leave will be supported for 35 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the city, and support for pregnancy-friendly workplace environments such as maternity chairs and labor support will be provided to 20 SMEs.

Childcare fees for children using daycare centers will increase by 20,000 to 52,000 KRW compared to the previous year, and the Nuri Curriculum childcare fee will increase by 20,000 KRW (effective from March 1).

Starting March 1 next year, a Converged Care Center for the most severely developmentally disabled will operate 24/7, 365 days a year, providing one-on-one support including daytime care, behavior modification, independent living support, emergency care in the absence of parents, and weekend/holiday one-on-one care.

The Gwangju-type postpartum care public service will be implemented, training idle personnel with professional qualifications such as nurses and nurse assistants as postpartum health managers, who will then be dispatched to postpartum families to provide specialized home postpartum care services such as breastfeeding massage and infant sleep coaching.

Gwangsan District will provide short-term residence support for up to six months to three houses temporarily supplied free of charge for two years by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) to housing-vulnerable groups experiencing temporary housing crises.

▲In the transportation sector, parking fees at public parking lots, which had not been adjusted for 15 years since 2004 and were about half the average of special and metropolitan cities, will increase from 1,400 KRW to 2,000 KRW per hour.

To expand entry opportunities for young and middle-aged people into private taxi services, the conditions for transferring private taxi licenses will be relaxed so that those without commercial vehicle driving experience can acquire licenses after completing traffic safety education (conducted by the Korea Transportation Safety Authority).

▲In the safety sector, to minimize damage from residential fires, support for the installation of residential fire safety facilities, previously provided only to vulnerable groups living in multi-family housing (excluding detached houses and apartments), will be expanded to the general population.

From June 10 next year, subcontracting restrictions on fire safety businesses will be expanded from construction work to include design and supervision, and fines replacing business suspensions will be increased (from up to 30 million KRW to up to 200 million KRW).

▲In the fiscal sector, the property tax rate on housing for single homeowners with a publicly announced price of 600 million KRW (tax base 360 million KRW) or less will be reduced by 0.05 percentage points for three years, and property tax exemptions on land portions of rental housing under construction will be expanded.

The complex resident tax system will be simplified to improve taxpayer convenience by integrating the July property portion and August equal portion paid by businesses into the August business place portion.

▲In the economic sector, the burden on farmers for comprehensive agricultural machinery insurance premiums, which cover damages from agricultural machinery accidents, will be reduced from 50% to 30%, excluding the 50% national subsidy, with Gwangju City and autonomous districts each supporting 10% of the reduced amount.

▲In the environmental sector, to improve air quality and manage noise appropriately, the regular inspection target for two-wheeled vehicles will be expanded from large motorcycles with engine displacement over 260cc to include medium and small motorcycles with engine displacement between 50cc and 260cc manufactured and registered after January 1, 2018.

▲In general administration, from January 20 next year, a 1% discount (200 to 5,000 KRW) will be applied to water bills for households that apply for electronic billing, automatic transfer, or non-receipt of paper bills, and from June 1, a reporting system for housing lease contracts will be implemented, requiring contract details to be reported to the district office with jurisdiction over the housing location within 30 days of the contract, applicable to both sales and lease contracts.

Oh Young-geol, the city’s Policy Planning Officer, said, “The new systems and policies changing from the new year contain a lot of useful and helpful information for daily life,” adding, “More detailed information can be found on the Gwangju City website’s notice section.”

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