Incheon City to Provide 1.04 Trillion Won in SME Development Funds This Year... Applications Open from the 17th

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Incheon City will provide 1.04 trillion KRW in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) development funds this year to support SMEs struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges.

Of this, 910 billion KRW will be allocated to interest rate differential compensation, which supports part of the bank interest rates, 50 billion KRW for accounts receivable insurance premiums to reduce the risk of corporate bankruptcy, and 40 billion KRW each for agreement guarantees and low-interest loans for companies with strong technology but weak collateral.

The loan support limit is up to 1 billion KRW for general companies, and up to 10 billion KRW for purpose-specific funds provided to employment-creating companies, export companies, and overseas returnee companies. Additionally, funds for factory acquisition will be loaned at low interest rates up to 3 billion KRW.

Especially this year, regardless of sales volume, the minimum support limits have been set at 100 million KRW for micro-enterprises, 1 billion KRW for companies donating to national veterans, and 100 million KRW for companies hiring female interns through Incheon Saeil.

National veterans’ donation companies and Incheon Saeil female intern hiring companies will also receive additional preferential interest rate support of 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively, on top of the basic differentiated interest rates per company.

The SME development fund support targets manufacturing, trade, construction, tourism, and chartered bus transportation businesses located in Incheon as of the application date. Applications can be submitted starting from the 17th through Incheon City's customized SME support system, 'Biz OK.'

An Incheon City official stated, "As the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and rising raw material prices threaten corporate management, we will promote various SME development fund support measures tailored to corporate demand."

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