Kim Boo-gyeom Vows to Restore Daegu’s "City of Merchants" Reputation... Promises Leap Forward for Small Businesses and Neighborhood Commercial Districts

Doubling Daegu Local Pay and Redesigning Support Methods
"Commercial District Belt" to Connect Daegu's Business Areas

Kim Boo-gyeom, the Democratic Party's preliminary candidate for mayor of Daegu, announced the "Small Business Owners and Neighborhood Commercial District Leap Project" on April 27, stating, "I will restore Daegu's reputation as the 'City of Merchants' by ensuring proper use of government finances."

On the afternoon of the 26th, at the opening ceremony of the Hope Camp election office for Democratic Party mayoral candidate Kim Boo-kyum near Duryu Station in Dalseo-gu, Daegu, candidate Kim is giving a speech. Photo by Yonhap News

Candidate Kim pledged to gradually increase the budget for Daegu Local Pay from the current 300 billion won to 600 billion won. He explained that the program would operate separately as a system to boost both citizen consumption and tourist spending; that the additional 300 billion won increment would be designated specifically to strengthen support for low-income and vulnerable groups; and that an "Electronic Voucher Support System" (mileage program) would be introduced. Through these measures, he expects the fiscal input to generate the maximum possible effect in stimulating consumption.

In addition, to protect small business owners suffering from the impact of the Middle East conflict, Kim announced plans to implement the "High Oil Price Support Triple Package," which includes interest rate, insurance, and recovery assistance measures. In cooperation with financial institutions, he will double the current scale of small business financial support from 2.2 trillion won per year to 4.4 trillion won, and plans to further strengthen the safety net by reducing the burden of social insurance premiums such as employment and industrial accident insurance for the self-employed. He also pledged to establish a support system from business closure to business restart, and to operate a "Major Franchise Unfair Practices Reporting Center" to protect the rights and interests of small business owners from various disadvantages experienced during business closure.

Candidate Kim announced plans to develop Daegu's commercial districts by creating a "Commercial District Belt" connecting surrounding areas. To achieve this, he intends to attract anchor stores, secure dedicated spaces for pop-up stores, implement storytelling initiatives, and promote coupon sharing.

He also promised to support the establishment of a Daegu-type integrated logistics service (fulfillment), a shared logistics infrastructure for small business owners, to strengthen the logistics competitiveness of neighborhood commercial districts. The plan is to lower costs through joint purchasing and reduce delivery fees.

In addition, Candidate Kim pledged to operate programs such as sick leave support for solo self-employed individuals.

Kim stated, "By linking the traditional market tourism resource development policy and the global city Daegu brand reconstruction strategy, which will be announced later, I aim to double the annual tourism industry sales from about 550 billion won to the 1 trillion won range, thereby completing policies for small business owners and the local economy."

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