Namwon City, Jeonbuk Province (Mayor Choi Kyung-sik) announced on the 31st that it has secured a budget of 40 million KRW after being selected for the ‘2023 Jeollabuk-do Local Government Regional Specialization Project’ to foster the social economy.
The ‘Social Economy Regional Specialization Project’ is a program designed to discover (preliminary) social enterprise models reflecting regional characteristics and to support raising awareness and developing sales channels for fostering the social economy within the region.
Over the past three years, the city has implemented the Namwon-type social enterprise model discovery, established a basic plan for the social economy, and carried out the Namwon-Seoul regional win-win social economy 50+ Fansumer project through the regional specialization project.
In particular, the Namwon-Seoul 50+ Fansumer project achieved recognition by winning the Encouragement Award at the ‘2022 Local Government Population Decline Response Best Practice Competition’ through new urban-rural exchanges and increased relational population via social economy company tours, management story interviews, and SNS dissemination.
This year, through the regional specialization project, the city plans to support local social economy companies in overcoming the economic downturn and pioneering new sales channels by expanding general market and public procurement sales routes.
Detailed projects include support for participation fees and promotion costs for domestic exhibitions, the ‘Sympathy Market’ for Chuseok holiday to revitalize public procurement, and the publication of a guidebook for Namwon City social economy companies’ products and services.
Through this regional specialization project, products such as oils, traditional Korean sweets (Hangwa), scorched rice (Nurungji), traditional jelly (Jeontong Muk), seaweed snacks (Gimbukak), loach soup (Chueotang), and craft beer produced by social economy companies using excellent Namwon agricultural specialties as raw materials are expected to be featured at major domestic exhibitions, expanding sales channels and increasing revenue.
Mayor Choi Kyung-sik said, “We will actively support strengthening product competitiveness and pioneering sales channels so that social economy companies, which solve social problems and create good jobs by utilizing local resources, can have sustainable growth momentum.”
Namwon = Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Jeong Young-kwon baekok@asiae.co.kr
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