Sogongyeon Meets Acting Director Choi Sangmok: "Government Must Be a Catalyst for Consumer Sentiment Recovery"

Proposal to Acting President Choi for Overcoming Small Business Crisis
Agreement Signed for "Good Early Purchase and Prepayment Campaign"

The Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise (KFME) announced on the 13th that Song Chi-young, chairman of KFME, proposed measures to revitalize domestic demand and alleviate the management burden on small business owners to Choi Sang-mok, Acting President and Deputy Prime Minister for Economy, who visited the federation.

Chairman Song attended the Livelihood Economy Inspection Meeting held at the KFME Digital Education Center in Mapo-gu, Seoul, in the morning and stated, "Small business owners are being driven to the brink as production costs rise to levels even large corporations find difficult to bear, and consumer sentiment has frozen." He then proposed a domestic demand revitalization plan through early purchase and prepayment campaigns as a measure to overcome the crisis faced by small business owners.

Prime Minister and Acting President Choi Sang-mok held a Good Early Purchase and Prepayment Agreement Ceremony with organizations including the Small Business Association at the Livelihood Economy Inspection Meeting held on the 13th at the Small Business Association Digital Education Center in Mapo-gu, Seoul. Photo by the Small Business Association

Chairman Song also requested that "the government and public sector take the lead in encouraging dining-out consumption to serve as a catalyst for restoring consumer sentiment," and called for measures to reduce utility charges such as electricity, gas, and water bills to ease the burden on small business owners and self-employed individuals. Additionally, he pointed out problems with the mandatory barrier-free kiosk (kiosk for the disabled) policy recently raised by the KFME.

In response, Acting President Choi explained the progress of the comprehensive measures for small business owners and self-employed individuals, centered on the government's financial support "three-piece set." He expressed the intention to promote the good early purchase and prepayment campaign until early April and held a signing ceremony with organizations including KFME attending the meeting.

Furthermore, he announced plans to review events such as the Onnuri gift certificate refund campaign, easing the self-pay burden for the data voucher support project, and expanding the scope of job duties in the pilot project for foreign worker employment permits in the restaurant industry. In particular, regarding the mandatory barrier-free kiosk policy, he promised, "We will prepare measures to reduce the burden on small business owners within the first half of the year."

The meeting was attended by government officials including Acting President Choi and Oh Young-joo, Minister of SMEs and Startups. On the private sector side, representatives from KFME, the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, the Korea Employers Federation, the National Federation of Merchants, and the Korea Foodservice Industry Association participated.