Sejong City, "Local Fund Outflow Drops Sharply... Yeominjeon Effect Evident"

[Asia Economy (Sejong) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Sejong City has seen significant effects in preventing the outflow of local funds through the issuance of local currency.

According to the city on the 22nd, Yeominjeon was launched in March last year, and by December, 178.9 billion KRW had been sold through Hana Card and NongHyup Card, with 164.2 billion KRW of that amount consumed within the region.

In particular, during this period, the in-region consumption amount in Sejong increased by 185.5 billion KRW (52%) to 542 billion KRW compared to the previous year (356.5 billion KRW), while the out-of-region consumption rate decreased by 19.2 percentage points for Hana Card and 2.4 percentage points for NongHyup Card compared to the previous year.

This indicates that the issuance of Yeominjeon has been effective in preventing the outflow of local funds. The city believes that the increase in out-of-region consumption was offset by the Yeominjeon consumption amount of 164.2 billion KRW and an estimated natural increase of 21.3 billion KRW.

Based on this, the city estimates that for every 100 million KRW of Yeominjeon issued, in-region consumption increases by 90 million KRW, and out-of-region consumption decreases by 3.8 million KRW.

Yeominjeon can be charged and used through an app. As of December last year, the app had 106,000 registered users, which corresponds to 40% of the local adult population. The age distribution of app users is 34.2% in their 40s, 32.1% in their 30s, and 14.2% in their 50s.

In the consumption analysis by industry, sales in small business-centered sectors such as restaurants, general retail stores, and food and beverage accounted for 50.6% of the total, while sales in education and medical sectors accounted for 27.4%.

By residential area, the consumption proportions were 12% in Areum-dong, 9% in Saerom-dong, and 7% in Jochiwon-eup, among others.

Meanwhile, the city has set a target issuance amount of 240 billion KRW for Yeominjeon this year. In particular, the goal is to sell 75 billion KRW worth of Yeominjeon in the first quarter. Considering that 50 billion KRW worth of Yeominjeon has been sold from last month to the current month, the first quarter target can be achieved by selling 25 billion KRW next month.

The monthly purchase limit for app users is 1 million KRW, and users can receive a 10% benefit.

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