Jeonnam Provincial Council Passes 62.3 Billion Won Supplementary Budget to Overcome COVID-19 Crisis

Chairman Kim Taegyun, Prompt Preparation of the 2nd Supplementary Budget... Full Efforts to Revive the Economy Including Small Business Owners

Kim Tae-gyun, Jeonnam Provincial Assembly Member

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Chunsu] The Jeonnam Provincial Council's Economic, Tourism, and Culture Committee announced on the 3rd that it reviewed and passed an additional budget of approximately 62.3 billion KRW in the economic sector, urgently allocated to overcome the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, including management stabilization funds, public utility fee support, and support for issuing local love gift certificates.

Chairman Kim Taegyun explained, "Of the 213.9 billion KRW additional budget for overcoming the COVID-19 crisis, about 62.3 billion KRW is allocated to the economic sector. In particular, 10.2 billion KRW in public utility fees such as gas, electricity, and water and sewage will be supported for about 85,000 small business owners with annual sales under 300 million KRW among 135,000 small business owners in the province."

He also stated, "200 billion KRW will be provided for interest support on management stabilization funds for small and medium enterprises, 20 billion KRW for issuing local love gift certificates, 1.8 billion KRW for special guarantee fees, and 2.5 billion KRW for microfinance support and special guarantees for vulnerable groups, all to be promptly deployed to overcome the economic crisis."

Especially, Chairman Kim emphasized, "Although the first supplementary budget was urgently prepared to overcome COVID-19 early, the second supplementary budget will also be prepared promptly to fully support small business owners, self-employed individuals, and SMEs facing difficulties, as well as to support people's livelihoods."

He continued, "During the budget review process, while interest subsidy support for small business owners and SMEs to overcome the economic crisis is important, increasing loans should be the top priority considering the economic ripple effects."

Furthermore, he pointed out, "The problem is that a considerable amount of time is required from issuing confirmation documents for loans to actually receiving loans from banks," and demanded, "Measures should be devised to increase loans and enable quick loan acquisition."

Chairman Kim Taegyun said, "Since the economic crisis is severe, we will expand budget support for economic recovery, and continuously check problems and difficulties in the economic response situation to actively seek various opinions for recovery and leap forward."