Second and Fourth Sundays → Weekdays Transition... "Change Expected in June or July"
Daejeon City has begun gathering opinions to decide whether to change the mandatory closure days of large supermarkets to weekdays.
According to Daejeon City on the 21st, the designation of closure days for large supermarkets was implemented in 2012 to protect traditional markets and local shopping districts. However, as the competition structure in the distribution market has shifted from large supermarkets versus local shopping districts to online versus offline, its effectiveness has diminished.
There are concerns that Sunday closures of large supermarkets have instead led to simultaneous downturns in surrounding commercial areas and decreased sales for nearby small and medium-sized retailers and small business owners, causing inconvenience to citizens such as dual-income couples and single-person households who can only shop on weekends.
In Daejeon, three Homeplus stores (Tanbang Branch, Dunsan Branch, Dongdaejeon Branch) have closed over the past three years, and Lotte Mart and E-Mart are also experiencing difficulties.
Daejeon City is seeking to collect opinions and reach agreements among stakeholders regarding the plan to change the mandatory closure days of large supermarkets and quasi-large stores from the current second and fourth Sundays to weekdays.
Since early April, the city has been visiting stakeholders including merchants from traditional markets, shopping districts, alley-type shopping districts, the Mart Cooperative, the Daejeon Consumer Organizations Council, and the Daejeon Small Business and Self-Employed Federation to gather opinions.
However, due to differences in the number of large supermarket stores and market distribution by autonomous districts, reaching a uniform agreement is difficult. Although the Daejeon Merchants Federation exists, its membership accounts for less than half of the traditional markets and shopping districts in the area, resulting in insufficient representativeness.
The city plans to listen to all merchant associations to reflect stakeholders' opinions as much as possible and to prepare coexistence measures.
Daejeon City expects the change in mandatory closure days for large supermarkets to be implemented around June or July this year, following the holding of the Distribution Industry Win-Win Development Council, stakeholder agreements, administrative announcements, and further opinion gathering.
Kwon Kyung-min, Director of the Economic Science Bureau of Daejeon City, said, "With the increase in online commerce causing the decline of local shopping districts, it is now important for large supermarkets and traditional markets to find ways to coexist. Daejeon City will also do its best to enhance citizen convenience and revitalize the local economy through changing the mandatory closure days of large supermarkets, as well as to promote support measures for small business owners."
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