Selected Thank-You Gifts for Incheon Hometown Love Donation Program: 9 Items Including Ganghwaseom Rice and Incheon e-eum Gift Certificates

Incheon City Hall

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Incheon City announced on the 22nd that it has finalized nine types of return gifts, including Ganghwaseom rice, for the Hometown Love Donation Program to be implemented in January next year.

In addition to Ganghwaseom rice, the return gifts include red ginseng slices, Ongjin kanari fish sauce, handmade ginseng syrup, as well as four types of service vouchers such as city tour gift certificates, Incheon Tour Pass, wellness tourism vouchers, and fishing village experience vouchers. Local currency 'Incheon e-eum' gift certificates were also selected as return gifts.

The city explained that after conducting a comprehensive survey over two months considering factors such as regional representativeness, ease of delivery, product price, and the effect of revitalizing the local economy, it selected 88 items and then finalized nine as return gifts.

The city plans to finalize the suppliers of the return gifts in January next year after going through a public contest procedure by the end of this month.

The Hometown Love Donation Program is a system where individuals donate to local governments other than their place of residence, and the local governments use the donation funds to create a hometown love fund to support vulnerable groups or youth.

Individuals can donate up to 5 million KRW annually and receive local specialty products as return gifts within 30% of the donation amount. Donations under 100,000 KRW are fully tax-deductible, and for donations exceeding 100,000 KRW, 16.5% is deductible.

The city plans to actively promote the Hometown Love Donation Program targeting 620,000 people originally from Incheon living in other regions and 170,000 people commuting to Incheon for work or school to encourage donations to Incheon.

An Incheon city official stated, "We will implement the Hometown Love Donation Program as planned after completing the remaining administrative procedures," adding, "We will ensure that this system contributes to the development of Incheon and revitalization of the local economy."