[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Jo Hangyu] Jangseong County in Jeonnam announced on the 18th that it will concentrate the budget cuts from events such as the Hwangryonggang Yellow Flower Festival on flood damage recovery.
The Jangseong Hwangryonggang Yellow Flower Festival is Jeonnam's representative flower festival, attracting about one million visitors for three consecutive years until last year.
The "most beautiful flower river in Korea," Hwangryonggang, filled with one billion autumn flowers, and unique experiences offered great popularity among visitors.
It also played a "breadwinner" role in revitalizing the local economy. According to the evaluation report by the Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation of Dongshin University, 89% of the total visitors to the Yellow Flower Festival last year were from outside the region, and the economic effect during the festival period reached about 30 billion won.
The county canceled the Yellow Flower Festival due to COVID-19 and cut the festival budget by 840 million won. It also decided to cut 450 million won from the budget for overseas training and education for public officials.
In addition, budgets for projects canceled or scaled down in the first half of the year due to COVID-19 were also boldly cut.
The reduced budget will be used for flood damage recovery caused by the heavy rain last month.
Jangseong County first allocated the budget for river and forest disaster recovery design (1 billion won) and Ansan Dullegil trail restoration (200 million won).
Previously, the county invested 1.73 billion won in contingency funds to carry out emergency repairs of river embankments and reservoirs, emergency repairs of the Nano Industrial Complex access road, and flood debris collection work.
Along with this, Jangseong County plans to provide disaster relief funds totaling about 3.6 billion won before and after Chuseok.
Before Chuseok, it will provide ▲40 million won to 2 households with casualties ▲312 million won to 146 damaged households, and after Chuseok, it will support ▲2.399 billion won to 1,281 farms with crop damage ▲780 million won to 366 farms with forest product damage ▲113 million won to 14 farms with livestock and fisheries damage.
Yoo Dooseok, Jangseong County Governor, said, "To ensure rapid disaster recovery, we have cut all unnecessary project budgets, including the Yellow Flower Festival budget," and added, "We intend to alleviate the difficulties of residents by providing disaster relief funds before and after Chuseok."
He emphasized, "We will concentrate all the capabilities of Jangseong County to pursue the top priority goal of county administration, 'pursuit of residents' happiness.'"
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