Pyeongtaek City "Advance Disaster Relief Payments to Farms and Small Businesses Affected by Heavy Snow"

Decision to Provide Emergency Support Due to Delay in Designating Special Disaster Area

Pyeongtaek City in Gyeonggi Province decided to provide disaster relief funds in advance to farms and small business owners affected by last month's heavy snowfall. Due to delays in the government's designation of a special disaster area amid the impeachment crisis, the city intends to take the lead in urgent support at the municipal level.

On the 9th, Pyeongtaek City announced this during a press briefing. The city explained that nearly 100 billion won in damages occurred due to the heavy snowfall over two days from the 27th to 28th of last month, including 2.3 billion won in public facility damages and 94.4 billion won in private facility damages.

The city judged that rapid damage recovery is urgent to alleviate the difficulties of affected farms, and plans to prepay disaster relief funds to affected citizens such as agricultural, livestock, and fisheries farms and small business owners before the national funding is finalized.

In addition, the city added that it has established a plan to provide an additional 1.5% interest subsidy for small and medium-sized enterprises that have taken out loans from the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Fund due to the heavy snowfall damage. It is also promoting measures such as loan repayment deferral, interest reduction, and special management fund loans for affected agricultural farms.

Jung Jang-seon, mayor of Pyeongtaek City, said, "The city will strive to ensure that disaster relief funds are distributed promptly to stabilize citizens' lives," and added, "We will do our best to ensure that no citizens are left out of support for heavy snowfall damage."

The city is operating a 'Heavy Snow Damage On-site Task Force' to assist with private damage recovery, and to resolve civil complaints quickly, it has also launched tailored support centers including ▲Agriculture and Livestock Damage Recovery Support Center ▲Heavy Snow Damage Enterprise Support Center ▲Livestock Facility Permit Support Center ▲Volunteer Center.

Earlier, on the 3rd, the city requested Gyeonggi Province and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to designate a special disaster area and provide special disaster safety grants.