Last Year, Local Love Gift Certificates Sold for 13.3 Trillion Won ... 15 Trillion Issued This Year

Ministry of the Interior and Safety Plans Sales of 2.7 Trillion Won by Next Month's Seol Holiday

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Last year, local love gift certificates sold by 230 local governments nationwide amounted to a total of 13.3 trillion won.

This year, 15 trillion won worth will be issued, exceeding last year's amount.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on the 13th, the local love gift certificates sold by 230 local governments nationwide in 2020 totaled 13.3 trillion won, which is 35.9 times compared to 2018 and 4.2 times compared to 2019.

Out of the 9.6 trillion won supported by national funds (national subsidy amount of 669 billion won), 9.2 trillion won was sold, and local governments also sold local love gift certificates worth 4.1 trillion won on their own using local funds without national subsidies.

Looking at the sales performance of local love gift certificates by city and province, Gyeonggi-do recorded the highest sales with 2.51 trillion won, followed by Incheon with 2.49 trillion won, and Busan with 1.24 trillion won. Except for Sejong and Jeju, most regions exceeded the scale of national subsidy issuance in total sales.

In particular, the rate at which local love gift certificates sold to residents were actually consumed and finally redeemed reached 99.8%, indicating that local love gift certificates have been practically helpful in revitalizing the local economy by stimulating local consumption and increasing sales of small business owners.

Accordingly, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to expand the issuance support scale of local love gift certificates to a total of 15 trillion won in 2021 and provide 1.0522 trillion won in national subsidies for 10% discount sales.

First, as an early support project for local economic recovery, 8% of national subsidies will be provided for 9 trillion won, and for additional support of 4.84 trillion won to stimulate local consumption, 6% of national subsidies will be provided after checking sales performance in the first half of the year and conducting a separate demand survey. Also, for 1.16 trillion won temporarily supported only to local governments such as Seoul, Seongnam, and Hwaseong that do not receive ordinary local allocation tax, 3-4% of national subsidies will be provided.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to cooperate with local governments to sell 2.7 trillion won worth of local love gift certificates by the Lunar New Year holiday and 4.5 trillion won by the first quarter (March) to support the recovery of the local economy suffering from the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition, additional incentives will be provided to local governments with excellent sales performance, and cooperation with local governments will be promoted to conduct on-site inspections to prevent illegal distribution.

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