Seoul City to Provide 20 Billion Won 1% Low-Interest Loans to Food Service Operators This Year... 10 Times Last Year's Amount

Record Largest Support Scale... 30% of Total 'Food Promotion Fund' Raised Amount
Annual 1% Low Interest Rate Applied Equally to All Products and Removal of Overlapping Support Restrictions to Expand Beneficiaries

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] On the 3rd, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that it will expand loan support using the ‘Food Promotion Fund’ up to 20 billion KRW this year for food self-employed workers such as general and snack restaurants and bakeries who are struggling due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. This is ten times the scale of last year and accounts for about 30% of the 61.8 billion KRW Food Promotion Fund from last year.

Seoul plans to increase the support scale this year while easing loan criteria to increase beneficiaries. The interest rate, which was previously applied differently depending on the type of loan product (1-2% per annum), will be uniformly applied at a low interest rate of 1.0% per annum, which is significantly lower than market loans. In addition, the ‘COVID-19 Emergency Operating Fund,’ which supports fixed costs such as labor costs and rent, the biggest burden for self-employed workers, can also receive overlapping support if they have taken loans from the Seoul Small and Medium Business Development Fund. The loan repayment condition is a 2-year grace period followed by 3 years of equal installment repayments. However, for food manufacturing businesses, it is a 3-year grace period followed by 5 years of equal installment repayments.

Food self-employed workers can receive loans at a low interest rate of 1.0% per annum ranging from a maximum of 20 million KRW to 800 million KRW per business depending on the type and target of the loan product. The types of loan products through the Food Promotion Fund include ▲‘COVID-19 Emergency Operating Fund’ used for labor costs and rent ▲‘Facility Improvement Fund’ ▲‘Development Fund’ used for menu development, etc.

Food self-employed workers who wish to apply for loans can apply from the 3rd at the food hygiene department of the autonomous district where the restaurant is located. After screening by the autonomous district and Seoul city, if confirmed as the final beneficiary, they can directly visit Woori Bank, Hana Bank, and IBK Industrial Bank, which are the banks handling the Food Promotion Fund, to apply for the loan. The loan amount and approval will be finally decided according to the credit management regulations of the handling banks.

Park Yumi, Director of the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s Citizen Health Bureau, said, “With the 20 billion KRW loan support from the Seoul Food Promotion Fund this year, we will do our best to help food self-employed workers normalize their business operations as soon as possible,” and added, “Seoul will monitor the loan disbursement status and continuously promote it to ensure that the loans are fully disbursed to as many beneficiaries as possible.”

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