Reinvigorating 190 Unregistered Conventional Markets

Among the national 385 “unregistered” conventional markets, approximately 190 of them will be reinvigorated.

On December 3, at the official residence of the prime minister in Samcheong-dong, under the supervision of Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, the government held a ministers’ meeting related to regulation improvement and decided on conventional market reinvigorating countermeasures including the relaxation of registration requirements.

The government has relaxed the current registration standard of the required 3,000 square meters of commerce establishments to “over 2,000 square meters or over 100 stores” and made it possible for the government to support the budgets of middle-scaled markets with high practical usage for improvements such as upgrading outdated or overused equipment.

Also, the government will pay the expenses that the entrepreneurs have been paying (10 percent of the total business expenses) for the expansion of infrastructure such as the enlargement of public parking lots near conventional markets and the maintenance of roads and alleys in the vicinity.

With this, the government has decided to support traditional conventional markets centered in middle and small-sized cities and tourist resorts such as the ginseng medicine market of Geumsan, the Googija market of Cheongyang, South Choongcheong province. However, regarding the markets that have actually lost their functions due to low practical usage, the government has decided to convert this space to residential areas through reconstruction and development.

Yong-Gwan Jung yongari@donga.com