Geoje City Opens Service Desk to Assist Small Businesses with Hope Recovery Fund Applications

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Bureau, reporter Lee Sanghyun] On August 17, Geoje City in South Gyeongsang Province opened a service desk to help small business owners quickly receive the Hope Recovery Fund, as applications began on the same day.

The Hope Recovery Fund is the fifth round of government disaster relief payments, provided to small businesses and micro-enterprises that were either subject to business suspension or operational restrictions due to COVID-19 prevention measures, or that belong to industries classified as being in management crisis.

Eligible recipients are those whose businesses were registered before June 30, 2021, and were not closed as of July 6, 2021. This includes small businesses and micro-enterprises that complied with administrative orders for business suspension between August 16, 2020, and July 6, 2021, as well as those in industries with reduced sales due to operational restrictions or classified as management crisis industries.

The amount of support is divided into 32 categories, reflecting the level of prevention measures, duration of restrictions, sales volume, and business type, in order to tailor the aid to the degree of damage suffered by each business.

Businesses in the suspended category will receive between 3 million and 20 million KRW, those in the restricted category will receive between 2 million and 9 million KRW, and those in management crisis industries will receive between 400,000 and 4 million KRW.

Industries subject to long-term business suspension by the city include entertainment bars, karaoke bars, and colatecs. Short-term suspension industries include PC rooms, indoor group exercise facilities, and indoor sports facilities. Long-term operational restriction industries include restaurants, cafes, and private academies, while short-term restriction industries include hair and beauty salons and study rooms.

According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, 277 sub-industries in 13 sectors have been designated as management crisis industries based on a comparison of sales data from the National Tax Service. These include travel agencies, public facility operations, chartered bus transportation, barbershops, taxi transportation, and household laundry services.

For the first round of expedited payments, notification text messages were sent out starting August 17. Applicants must prepare a mobile phone registered in their name or a joint authentication certificate for identity verification and apply online at the official website (희망회복자금.kr).

Small business owners seeking assistance in person can visit the Hope Room on the third floor of City Hall.

Mayor Byun Kwangyong stated, "I would like to thank all small business owners and citizens for actively cooperating with prevention measures despite many difficulties," adding, "We will do our utmost to promote the program and support applications to ensure that no eligible recipients are left out."

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