Gyeongnam Province Increases 'Temporary Pause' Small Business Policy Funds by 100 Billion Won... 300 Billion Won Loans This Year

Gyeongnam Province held a meeting to discuss support policies tailored for small business owners in Gyeongnam.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Sang-hyun] Gyeongnam Province has decided to promote a Gyeongnam-type small business support policy to help small business owners recover their management and strengthen their competitiveness.

First, to support small business owners facing management difficulties due to the temporary pause during the phased daily recovery, Gyeongsangnam-do plans to significantly increase the scale of policy fund loans for small business owners from 200 billion KRW last year to 300 billion KRW this year, and reduce the burden on small business owners by supporting interest and guarantee fees.

Among the total loan amount, the additional 100 billion KRW will be allocated as a special fund for the temporary pause. The loan conditions are set at 10 million KRW per business, separate from the existing guarantee limit, with a 1-year grace period and 4 years of installment repayment. The province will fully support interest and guarantee fees for one year on the special fund for the temporary pause.

The special fund for the temporary pause is available to any small business owner in the province who opened their business before December 31, 2021, and has not received a new guarantee from the Gyeongnam Credit Guarantee Foundation within the last three months, regardless of credit rating.

Businesses that are overdue, temporarily closed or closed, bankrupt, under personal rehabilitation, unable to conduct credit transactions with other financial institutions, delinquent on national or local taxes, or engaged in luxury, entertainment, or speculative industries are excluded from support.

For the existing policy funds of 200 billion KRW, the guarantee fee support will also be uniformly expanded to 50% to 60% for one year.

The province plans to provide detailed information about policy fund loans through a separate announcement on the Gyeongsangnam-do website in January.

The Gyeongnam-type win-win landlord movement will also be extended until 2022. To revitalize the win-win landlord movement, the province will continue to promote property tax reductions through amendments to the local tax reduction ordinance and reductions in rental fees for public properties.

As of the end of September last year, property tax reductions totaling 574 million KRW were granted to 1,596 landlords who lowered rents for small business owners, and 2,288 small business stores benefited from rent reductions totaling 6.441 billion KRW.

To boost consumer sentiment and revitalize the local economy during the Lunar New Year holiday, 20 billion KRW worth of Gyeongnam Love Gift Certificates will be issued in January at a 5% discount.

Also, to support online transactions of small business owners amid the surge in non-face-to-face consumption trends after COVID-19, the online-only gift certificate "Gyeongnam e-ji," issued since last year, will be sold at a 10% discount totaling 5 billion KRW after February.

Since the issuance of 2.2 billion KRW worth of "Gyeongnam e-ji" gift certificates at the end of last year, e-Gyeongnam Mall's average daily sales have increased more than fourfold, and the Gyeongnam-type public-private cooperative delivery app's daily sales paid with Zero Pay gift certificates have increased more than 2.8 times.

Gyeongnam Province plans to switch the Gyeongnam Love Gift Certificates to a cashback type that provides benefits at the payment stage rather than pre-discounting at the purchase stage to maximize the effect of revitalizing the local economy, and will newly introduce this in the first half of the year.

To alleviate the management burden of small business owners, the province will expand the "Small-scale Management Environment Improvement Project," which improves store environments such as indoor and outdoor interior renovations, restroom improvements, quarantine facilities like table partitions, and product delivery packaging containers and shopping bags.

In 2021, a total of 2,162 small business owners received support, and since this project has the highest satisfaction and demand among small business owners in the province, the plan is to expand support to 2,500 places this year.

Support will cover up to 80% of the cost of facility improvements per business, up to a maximum of 2 million KRW.

Park Jong-won, Deputy Governor for Economic Affairs, said, "We will promptly implement various support policies to help small business owners overcome management crises and to stimulate consumption and revitalize local shopping districts."

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