Assemblyman Lee Byung-hoon: "Additional Support Needed for Travel Industry and Private Sports Facilities"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Congressman Lee Byung-hoon (Democratic Party of Korea·Gwangju Dongnam-eul) strongly demanded additional damage support for the travel industry and private sports facilities from the minister attending the National Assembly Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism supplementary budget review regarding the government's 4th disaster relief measures.

The National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee held a plenary meeting on the 11th and submitted and began reviewing the 2021 first supplementary budget proposal amounting to 157.1 billion won submitted by the government.

In this supplementary budget, the travel industry was classified as a ‘general management crisis’ sector with a sales decrease of over 20% among the emergency damage support budget for small business owners, and a plan was submitted to support 18,223 companies with 2 million won each.

Congressman Lee said, “The travel industry suffered more than 80% damage due to measures such as 14-day self-quarantine for overseas entrants and prohibition of gatherings of five or more people caused by the spread of COVID-19 last year, effectively equivalent to prohibition or restriction of gatherings, so it corresponds to the prohibited gathering sector,” and added, “The travel industry should be included in the prohibited gathering sector to receive 5 million won in support.”

Along with this, he demanded the establishment of reasonable standards considering fairness controversies when selecting private sports facilities for damage support.

Congressman Lee pointed out, “Currently, the number of indoor sports facility businesses is estimated to be about 63,000, with more than 100,000 workers, but the current supplementary budget support target is 6,800 people, which is about 11% of the market size,” and “While other employment support projects under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism consistently provide 1.8 million won in labor costs, only private sports facilities receive 1.6 million won, which may cause fairness complaints, so expansion of the target and upward adjustment of the support amount are necessary.”

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