Ministry of the Interior and Safety to Focus Annual 1 Trillion Won 'Local Extinction Response Fund' on Population Decline Areas

Establishment of Notification on Distribution Criteria for Local Extinction Response Fund

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 8th that it will establish and promulgate the "Standards for the Allocation of the Local Extinction Response Fund" to fully operate the Local Extinction Response Fund, which was introduced to actively respond to the risk of local extinction caused by population decline in regions.

The Local Extinction Response Fund is established within an association composed of 17 metropolitan cities and provinces, and the association entrusts the necessary administrative tasks for the operation and management of the fund to a specialized institution. Since January, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Korea Local Finance Guarantee Fund have been working on establishing an office, revising association regulations necessary for fund operation, formulating fund operation plans and settlements, and forming the Local Extinction Response Fund Deliberation Committee to review key matters.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has formulated an allocation plan to ensure that the Local Extinction Response Fund, as an autonomous financial resource of local governments, is used for projects aligned with the purpose of responding to local extinction. Since the Local Extinction Response Fund is a limited resource, 95% of the basic support account will be allocated to population decline areas, and 90% of the metropolitan support account will be concentrated on metropolitan cities and provinces that have jurisdiction over population decline areas for efficient use.

The projects promoted by the Local Extinction Response Fund are not top-down supports decided at the central government level regarding project goals, fields, or specific implementation methods, but rather bottom-up support policies led by regions themselves under strategies and investment plans they establish. Each region must conduct a detailed analysis of population decline phenomena and actively utilize various specialized local resources to independently establish creative and differentiated plans.

Minister Jeon Hae-cheol stated, “I hope the Local Extinction Response Fund will serve as a catalyst by focusing investment on creative projects planned by the regions themselves to respond to population decline and the risk of local extinction.” He added, “Going forward, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and related ministries will comprehensively support this by providing various national subsidy projects and policies, and will actively strive to promptly enact the Special Act on Support for Population Decline Areas, currently under discussion in the National Assembly, to strengthen institutional support.”

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