Yongin City "Let's Save Small Businesses and SMEs"... Financial and Policy Support

Unsecured Loan Guarantees for Small Business Owners... Interest and Fees Also Supported
'Enterprise Support Alimi Talk' Aggregating Corporate Policies Available

Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province has stepped up to support local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small business owners struggling due to the economic downturn in the region. While expanding loans to ease the financial burden on small business owners, the city is also strengthening policy promotion for SMEs.

First, Yongin City provides unsecured, low-interest loan guarantees to small business owners with low credit ratings who find it difficult to obtain loans from financial institutions. This program supports the startup and operating funds of small business owners through guarantees from the Gyeonggi Credit Guarantee Foundation.

Through this, small business owners can borrow up to 50 million KRW unsecured for up to five years. The city supports loan interest for one year within an annual rate of 3%. The city also covers the guarantee fees that small business owners must pay for special guarantees for one year.

Loans can be applied for through seven contracted banks in the area, including KB Kookmin Bank, IBK Industrial Bank, NH Nonghyup Bank, Shinhan Bank, Woori Bank, Hana Bank, and Saemaeul Geumgo. Loan interest rates apply the market rates of each bank. The special guarantee fund size is 21 billion KRW.

The support targets small business owners who have registered their business in the area and have operated their business for more than two months. However, businesses that have reported temporary closure or shutdown, those with overdue local taxes, and businesses in guarantee-restricted industries (such as golf courses, liquor wholesale, tobacco brokerage, etc.) are excluded from loan eligibility.

The city also provides unsecured, low-interest loans under the same conditions to small business owners operating in innovative and smart industries. In particular, for loans to small business owners in innovative and smart industries, the guarantee fees are supported for five years.

Innovative and smart industries include companies involved in augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), 3D, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), kiosks, table ordering, and robotics.

Small business owners wishing to apply for loans can visit the Yongin branch of the Gyeonggi Credit Guarantee Foundation or apply through the Gyeonggi Credit Guarantee Foundation Cyber Guarantee Center. Final recipients are selected after document screening and on-site verification.

A city official said, "This will help small business owners who are struggling due to weakened consumer sentiment," adding, "We will continue to seek ways to support small business owners, who are the foundation of the local economy, in various ways."

Along with this, the city has also started providing the 'Enterprise Support Alimi Talk' service from this month, which uses KakaoTalk to deliver information on government and local government support policies to local businesspeople.

'Enterprise Support Alimi Talk' is a service that regularly informs about government and city enterprise support projects every second and fourth Wednesday of the month. To facilitate businesspeople's activities and easy access to information, it gathers support information from various institutions and provides it via KakaoTalk. To subscribe, users can search for 'Yonginsi Sanup Jinheungwon' in the KakaoTalk app's friend search and add it as a friend.

A city official explained, "We decided to provide this service to solve the difficulties businesspeople face due to lack of access to information on support policies necessary for business management." This eliminates the inconvenience of each company having to individually visit public institution websites to obtain necessary information.

The city plans to expand information delivery methods beyond KakaoTalk. To this end, it is exploring ways to connect the information from the 'Yongin Enterprise Support System,' which consolidates enterprise information and support policies in one place, with email and social networking services (SNS) to provide information to businesses.