Gyeonggi-do Excels in Fostering Social Enterprises... Awarded for Outstanding Local Government

Gyeonggi Province received the Excellent Local Government Award for its contributions to fostering social enterprises.

On the 22nd, Gyeonggi Province announced that it had won the 2024 Excellent Local Government Award for Social Enterprise Promotion at the ‘Social Enterprise Day Ceremony’ held at the Seoul National University Siheung Campus Convention Center.

In this evaluation, Gyeonggi Province received high marks for systematically creating an ecosystem to revitalize the social economy through the establishment of the Social Economy Bureau and the launch of the Gyeonggi Social Economy Center. Among local governments nationwide, Gyeonggi Province is the only one to have established social economy-related departments and public institutions.

Additionally, following Governor Kim Dong-yeon’s declaration of the ‘Four Major Visions for Realizing the Social Economy,’ Gyeonggi Province took the lead in supporting the growth of social economy organizations by raising 106.3 billion KRW for the Impact Fund (Social Investment Fund), hosting the 1st Social Economy Expo, opening online and offline social economy stores, and holding the Social Value Festa in collaboration with Starfield.

Currently, Gyeonggi Province ranks first nationwide in both the status of social enterprise promotion and the purchase ratio of (preliminary) social enterprise products.

Gyeonggi Province received the Grand Prize for Outstanding Local Government in Social Enterprise Promotion for 2024 at the 'Social Enterprise Day Ceremony' held on the 22nd at the Seoul National University Siheung Campus Convention Center. Photo by Gyeonggi Provincial Government

As of the end of September, among 4,875 social enterprises nationwide, 956 companies, accounting for 19.6%, have their main business sites in Gyeonggi Province. The purchase performance of (preliminary) social enterprise products is 7%. Among 26,094 cooperatives nationwide, 4,953 (18.9%) are located in Gyeonggi Province, ranking first in the country.

Meanwhile, to mitigate the impact on vulnerable groups’ jobs caused by the central government’s suspension of social enterprise wage support, Gyeonggi Province allocated its own budget of 4.06 billion KRW this year, supporting wages for 393 employees at 187 (preliminary) social enterprises and social insurance premiums for 1,566 employees at 165 companies.

Next year, Gyeonggi Province plans to secure a budget of 2.9 billion KRW for job creation and 1.86 billion KRW for social insurance premiums for (preliminary) social enterprises, supporting about 2,000 jobs and leading efforts to revitalize employment for vulnerable groups through (preliminary) social enterprises that realize social value.

Park Yeon-gyeong, Director of the Social Innovation Economy Bureau of Gyeonggi Province, emphasized, “The social economy acts as a driving force for economic growth in the intermediate area between the public sector and the market. This award proves that Gyeonggi Province is practicing a people-centered economy, ‘Humanomics.’ We will continue to do our best to discover and foster social enterprises that provide stable jobs for vulnerable groups and offer social services such as care.”