Small Business Groups: "Early-Morning Delivery by Large Discount Stores Is a Death Sentence... Halt the Discussions"

Press Conference Condemning Allowing Chaebol Companies to Operate Online and Offer Early-Morning Delivery
"Stakeholders Must Participate in the Official Consultative Body"

"Neighborhood business districts are the capillaries of our economy. When the capillaries are blocked, the entire body begins to rot."

Small business owners have defined the ruling party and government's move to allow large discount stores and quasi-large retailers to offer early-morning delivery as a "death sentence for neighborhood business districts" and urged that discussions be halted immediately.

The Korea Supermarket Cooperative Federation is holding a press conference titled 'Condemning the Allowance of Chaebol Companies' Online Sales and Dawn Delivery' on the 26th at the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Korea Federation of SMEs

Song Yukyung, President of the Korea Supermarket Cooperative Federation, said at the "Condemnation Press Conference on Allowing Chaebol Companies to Operate Online and Offer Early-Morning Delivery" held at the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeouido, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul on the 26th, "Right now, neighborhood business districts are not merely at a point where business is bad; they are standing on the brink of a miserable struggle for survival where simply holding on is a feat in itself," and stressed, "The political establishment is trying to tighten the last lifeline of small business owners by distorting the Distribution Industry Development Act under the hollow pretext of 'fair competition'."

She then criticized the ruling party and government's argument that regulations on large discount stores must be eased to curb the dominance of giant online platforms, saying, "It is like burning down the entire thatched house to catch a bedbug, and why should innocent small and medium-sized merchants become the scapegoats in a fight between giant dinosaurs?"

On this day, regional chairpersons of the Korea Supermarket Cooperative Federation took the podium one after another to point out the unfairness of the proposed revision to the Distribution Industry Development Act. Song Hongcheol, head of the Gyeonggi-Incheon region, expressed concern, saying, "If large discount stores and corporate-run supermarkets operated by chaebol groups begin deliveries during late-night hours, urban areas will turn into massive logistics hubs, and the only weapons of our neighborhood supermarkets, 'proximity' and 'speed,' will vanish without a trace."

Im Giljae, head of the Chungcheong-Gangwon region, said, "A monopolistic market structure is not resolved by granting special favors to yet another conglomerate," and pointed out, "What urgently needs to be fixed now is not the minimal regulations that have protected small business owners, but the abusive monopolies of platforms."

The federation urged the government and the ruling party to immediately halt discussions on allowing early-morning delivery by large discount stores and to focus instead on discussions about regulating online platforms. It also demanded that debates on restructuring the distribution system be restarted from scratch within an official consultative body in which stakeholders such as supermarkets and traditional markets participate.

A representative of the small business community said, "We will fight to the end together with 100,000 family members of small and medium-sized retail workers nationwide until the attempt to distort the Distribution Industry Development Act is withdrawn."