Councilor Son Minho Proposes "Incheon City Purchase and Cancel Bonds from Diligent Debtors"

Minho Son, Incheon City Council Member
[Photo by Incheon City Council]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] The Incheon City Council has proposed a groundbreaking credit recovery solution for diligent but unfortunate defaulters.

Son Minho (Democratic, Gyeyang-gu 1), chairman of the Administrative Safety Committee of the City Council, suggested a debt adjustment plan involving bond cancellation to provide practical support for the recovery of "diligent but unfortunate debtors" after COVID-19 during the 4th city administration question session of the 271st regular meeting on the 25th.

Chairman Son pointed out, "Current systems such as bankruptcy discharge, personal rehabilitation, and workout help support the recovery of 'diligent but unfortunate debtors,' but even after escaping the status of defaulter through these systems, public information remains registered for up to five years, making normal financial activities like loans impossible."

To complement this, Chairman Son proposed that Incheon City take the lead in directly purchasing and canceling the bonds of debtors who meet special conditions.

The bond cancellation method is expected to be much more advantageous than the current debt adjustment methods in terms of costs borne by the debtor, debt adjustment period, and timing of public information deletion, providing substantial help to small business owners and ordinary citizens who have inevitably become defaulters.

In response, Mayor Park Namchun expressed his intention to promote this proposal through amendments to the "Ordinance on Financial Welfare Counseling Support in Incheon City."

Chairman Son also argued that the manpower for financial welfare support for ordinary citizens in Incheon should be further expanded.

According to data on rehabilitation and bankruptcy status relative to the population in the metropolitan area from 2018 to 2020 and the metropolitan financial welfare support center, Incheon has nearly twice the number of rehabilitation and bankruptcy cases per population compared to Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, but the manpower for financial welfare support for ordinary citizens is only three people in one team at one center. This is far insufficient compared to Seoul (16 centers, 41 people) and Gyeonggi Province (13 centers, 34 people).

Accordingly, Chairman Son requested that the current financial welfare support manpower be increased to at least nine people by establishing three centers in the northern and southern regions.

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