Seoul City Offers Up to 50% Discounts at 14 Local Markets to Stabilize Prices

Seoul City is launching an all-out effort to stabilize prices. First, in celebration of the year-end and New Year holidays, large-scale discount events will be held at 14 representative neighborhood commercial districts in Seoul. Additionally, daily price monitoring of agricultural and marine products frequently purchased by citizens will be conducted, and for items with sharp price increases, the city will seek ways to supply them more cheaply than the market price by cooperating with private distribution companies. There are also plans to continuously expand the ‘Good Price Businesses’ to stabilize dining-out prices.

According to the city on the 30th, the discount events originally scheduled to run until the end of this month for the ‘Local Brand Commercial Districts (7 locations)’ and ‘Living Commercial Districts (7 locations)’ will be extended until the end of December. Until the end of December, if customers pay on-site with a BC Card Paybook for meals or purchases of 20,000 KRW or more at event stores within the Local Brand Commercial Districts, they can receive a discount of up to 10,000 KRW. Additionally, a 7,000 KRW discount is available for takeout payments of 15,000 KRW or more made through Coupang Eats.

The Living Commercial District discount events are conducted centered on local merchants and tailored to the characteristics of each commercial district. By downloading ‘Neighborhood Gifticons’ or ‘Coupons’ that can be used in the respective commercial districts online, customers can receive gifts or discounts of up to 50% of the purchase amount, and some stores also offer discounts for advance payments.

Furthermore, as the high inflation situation continues, the city is conducting daily price monitoring of agricultural and marine products that frequently appear on dining tables. Price monitoring personnel visit about 100 traditional markets across Seoul directly, and this will continue until the end of the year. For items with sharply rising prices identified through monitoring, the city plans to secure shipment volumes in consultation with the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation and wholesale corporations, and supply agricultural products to consumers at prices lower than the market by cooperating with private distribution companies.

In addition, the city (Civil Affairs Police Unit, Food Policy Division) and autonomous districts will conduct thorough guidance and inspections to completely prevent unfair trade practices such as failure to display price tags and origin labeling, which take advantage of the high inflation atmosphere.

Meanwhile, the number of ‘Good Price Businesses’ providing services at affordable prices to citizens in the era of high inflation has surpassed 1,000. To expand the number of Good Price Businesses, which was around 800 at the beginning of the year, the city increased the annual support amount per business from 240,000 KRW to 760,000 KRW this year, more than tripling it.

Park Jae-yong, Seoul City’s Director of Labor, Fairness, and Coexistence Policy, said, “Ahead of the year-end and New Year holidays when consumption increases, we will mobilize all possible capabilities and means within Seoul City to focus on price stabilization in order to ease the deepening sighs and worries of citizens caused by soaring prices.”

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