Gwangju City District Mayors' Council Urges Government and National Assembly to Allocate Budget for Daily Life Recovery

Support for Small Business Blind Spots, Demand for Nationwide Mutual Aid Subsidy Payment

[Gwangju Buk-gu=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yuk-bong] The Gwangju City District Mayors' Council (Chairman Moon In) announced on the 16th that it urged the government and the National Assembly to allocate the ‘2022 Government Budget’ for the recovery of daily life with With-Corona.

The meeting was held with the attendance of five district mayors: Im Taek, Dong-gu Mayor; Seo Dae-seok, Seo-gu Mayor; Kim Byeong-nae, Nam-gu Mayor; Moon In, Buk-gu Mayor; and Kim Sam-ho, Gwangsan-gu Mayor.

In a statement, the council said, “Although the 2022 budget bill, amounting to 604 trillion won, an 8.3% increase from the 558 trillion won in 2021, was submitted to the National Assembly citing the overcoming of the COVID-19 crisis and post-COVID-19 situations, the ‘daily life recovery support budget’ essential for With-Corona is hardly found.”

They evaluated that aside from the additional 1.8 trillion won in loss compensation support for small business owners subject to business restrictions and prohibitions, and 3.9 trillion won for tailored support at each stage such as overcoming the COVID-19 crisis, business closures, re-startups, startups, and growth, most of the budget is for general projects.

The council emphasized that for a definite recovery of daily life, support should include industries in blind spots such as lodging, tourism, travel, and culture and arts, not just the government’s limited loss compensation law application criteria for businesses subject to gathering bans and operating hour restrictions.

Furthermore, despite the fact that issuing local currency is most needed to revitalize the local economy, they demanded that the local currency issuance support budget, which was drastically cut by 77.2% from 1.2522 trillion won this year to 240.3 billion won in 2022, be increased to 3 trillion won, twice this year’s amount.

They added that support payments should be made to the 12% of the population excluded from the 5th disaster relief fund due to ambiguous criteria to correct unfairness, and that financial compensation must be provided for cases where local governments first supported with their own finances instead of the central government.

Additionally, as a catalyst for economic recovery, they demanded that the 6th nationwide mutual aid support fund be included in next year’s budget at an appropriate time and method corresponding to the daily life recovery stage.

Moon In, Chairman of the Gwangju City District Mayors' Council, said, “The daily life recovery support budget and the nationwide mutual aid support fund will have the greatest effect on economic revitalization and daily life recovery,” and added, “I hope that the daily life recovery budget for With-Corona will definitely be included in next year’s government budget.”

Gwangju Buk-gu=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yuk-bong bong2910@asiae.co.kr

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