Sogongyeon "Welcomes Ruling and Opposition's Supplementary Budget Agreement... Retroactive Application Must Be Implemented"

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwak Min-jae] Small business organizations welcomed the passage of the 2nd supplementary budget bill in the National Assembly plenary session but expressed regret over the postponement of discussions on retroactive application.

On the 30th, the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business issued a statement saying, “We highly appreciate that the ‘expansion of loss compensation to medium-sized enterprises,’ ‘increase in debt adjustment fund,’ ‘raising the damage compensation rate to 100%,’ and ‘minimum amount of 1 million won’ were fully reflected in this supplementary budget.” However, they added, “It is regrettable that the ruling and opposition parties postponed the discussion on the key issue of ‘retroactive application’ for later.”

The final agreed supplementary budget amounted to about 39 trillion won, an increase of 2.8 trillion won from the government’s proposal of 36.4 trillion won, with 23 trillion won allocated for small business loss compensation. The eligibility for the ‘loss compensation fund’ was expanded from annual sales of 3 billion won or less to 5 billion won or less, and the ‘loss compensation payment’ eligibility was also expanded to annual sales of up to 3 billion won. The increase of the damage compensation rate to 100%, the minimum amount of 1 million won, and an additional 400 billion won for the debt adjustment fund to manage non-performing loans were also included.

The Federation stated, “The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business has repeatedly emphasized the need for full damage support,” and added, “‘Loss compensation fund’ is just another name for ‘quarantine support fund,’ and a supplementary budget without ‘retroactive application’ cannot be considered full damage compensation.”

They further urged, “We hope the ruling and opposition parties swiftly prepare legislative amendments that align with ‘recovery and hope’ and ‘pre-processing candidate completion’ so that the president’s direct promise of ‘retroactive application’ can be promptly implemented.”