Daejeon City Provides Targeted Support for COVID-19 Vulnerable Groups Overlooked by Government Aid

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon City will provide targeted support to vulnerable groups affected by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) who are outside the scope of government assistance, as well as to small business owners and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

On the 14th, the city announced that it has set 11 tasks across 3 sectors to support small business owners and SMEs struggling with management difficulties due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and the third wave, and will invest a total of 58.23 billion KRW to address these tasks.

The support will focus on areas relatively neglected in the government's third COVID-19 support measures. The support items include ▲living stabilization funds for transportation workers ▲support for local artists and private performance venues affected ▲emergency liquidity supply and repayment deferral ▲expansion of Ontong Daejeon Ontong Sale ▲reduction of taxes and public charges such as usage and rental fees for public property.

First, to eliminate blind spots in government support, the city will provide targeted assistance to transportation workers and local artists.

For example, the government decided to provide differentiated payments of 1 million KRW to individual taxi drivers and 500,000 KRW to corporate taxi drivers as part of the third disaster relief. In this regard, the city plans to separately provide 500,000 KRW to corporate taxi transportation workers and 1 million KRW to charter bus transportation workers as living stabilization funds by next month, considering fairness among transportation workers.

Additionally, for 2,341 local artists struggling with activities due to the prolonged COVID-19 situation, the city will provide 1 million KRW per person as basic creative activity support, and will also provide 1 million KRW next month to private performance venues affected by gathering bans.

The city also aims to revitalize the local economy centered on small business owners through the local currency Ontong Daejeon. For instance, the city will hold the Ontong Sale event, which was first conducted once last year, twice this year?once in the first half and once in the second half. Furthermore, of the annual Ontong Daejeon issuance target of 1.3 trillion KRW, 800 billion KRW (62%) will be issued early in the first half, and the cashback rate will be increased from the current 10% to 15%. This is the city's strategy to stimulate local consumption and revitalize neighborhood commercial districts through Ontong Daejeon.

Support will also be provided to ease financial circulation for small business owners and SMEs. Emergency liquidity funds amounting to 200 billion KRW will be supplied in the first quarter to small business owners and SMEs, and loan repayments for 4,376 companies with approaching loan maturities will be deferred.

In addition, the city plans to reduce usage and rental fees by 50% in the first half of this year for 1,516 small business owners renting public property, thereby helping them reduce fixed costs by approximately 3 billion KRW.

The city also explained that it will promote a property tax reduction support project for good landlords, coordinating with five district offices to ensure that real estate owners who have lowered rents for small business owners receive property tax reduction benefits in July and September of this year.

Ko Hyun-deok, Director of the City’s Job and Economy Bureau, said, “Due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the local economy, including small business owners and traditional markets, remains trapped in a slump. The city will discover and implement tangible support policies for vulnerable groups such as small business owners and SMEs affected by COVID-19 to help them return to normal life as soon as possible.”

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