"Helping Solve Commercial District Issues"… Ministry of SMEs and Startups Announces Neighborhood Commercial District Development Center Support Project

Consortiums of Local Merchants and Residents to Be Recruited
"Serving as a Catalyst for Alleyway Commercial Districts to Take the Lead"

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups supports the revitalization of neighborhood commercial districts led by local merchants and residents. Starting this year, in addition to supporting the establishment of existing commercial district revitalization strategies, a new type has been introduced to help build networks among merchants, expanding the support scope to alleyway commercial districts with insufficient organization.

The Ministry announced the plan for the "2025 Neighborhood Commercial District Development Center Support Project" on the 4th.

The Neighborhood Commercial District Development Center Support Project aims to solve neighborhood commercial district issues that local merchants and residents feel directly and supports the stakeholders of the commercial district to lead the research and planning of business strategies. It was first introduced in 2023 and has supported a total of 25 neighborhood commercial districts so far.

This year, reflecting the characteristics of neighborhood commercial districts where organization among members is often insufficient before strategy establishment, a network type has been newly introduced to help organization through activating communication among merchants, in addition to the strategy establishment type for linking commercial district revitalization projects.

First, the strategy establishment type supports building commercial district governance, local archiving, and establishing a five-year commercial district revitalization strategy, aiming to link with commercial district revitalization projects. This year, about eight commercial district consortiums will be selected and supported with up to 150 million KRW. To apply, the lead organization such as a commercial district planner must form a consortium with local governments, merchants, and residents, and set a preliminary commercial district area including at least 30 stores to be promoted in the project.

The newly established network type this year selects about five alleyway commercial district consortiums to support up to 30 million KRW for organizing and building networks among alleyway merchants. The lead organization such as a commercial district planner must form a consortium with merchants and set a preliminary commercial district area including at least 15 stores (10 stores for population decline or interest areas) to be promoted in the project. Participation of local governments is not mandatory.

Lee Dae-geon, Director of Small Business Policy at the Ministry, said, "In the face of regional extinction crises and the decline of alleyway commercial districts, small-scale neighborhood commercial districts often lack organization itself, making it difficult to enter government support projects. We expect the Neighborhood Commercial District Development Center Support Project to serve as a catalyst so that not only large commercial districts but also alleyway commercial districts, which residents encounter daily in their lives, can become agents of regional revitalization."

Meanwhile, to help applicants understand, the Ministry plans to hold a project briefing session at the Small Enterprise and Market Service Daejeon Education Center on the 13th. The application period is from the 5th of this month to the 12th of next month.

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