Businesses donate to help the victims for wildfires

With a large chunk of land burned down in wildfire across North Gyeongsang and Gangwon provinces, many South Korean businesses have shown their generous support of those displaced while contributing to damage recovery missions.

Hyundai Motor Group on Sunday donated five billion won to the Korea Disaster Relief Association to help recover damage from the ongoing wildfire. The company allocated four “urban type laundry washing trucks” with a daily average capacity of 1,000 kilograms of laundry and one “united quarantine and relief vehicle” equipped with sanitizers, etc.

Samsung affiliates such as Samsung Electronics, Samsung Display and Samsung SDI announced that a total of three billion won in relief money was delivered to help out residents who lost their home due to the large-scale wildfire in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province, and Samcheok, Gangwon Province. They plan to provide 1,000 disaster relief kits with everyday products to those displaced staying in temporary residential facilities.

SK Group said that it will donate two billion won to the Community Chest of Korea while KT and LG Uplus intend to send emergency relief supplies including relief kits, blankets and sanitary products to the damaged regions.

Lotte Group plans to donate one billion won to the Community Chest of Korea while providing 1,000 relief kits and 23,000 food items including bottled water and cup noodle products. Shinsegae Group delivers daily products of which those displaced are in urgent need via E-mart branches near the affected areas.

The financial sector has also joined in helping citizens and businesses affected by the current wildfire. KB Financial Group and Shinhan Financial Group will donate one billion won each to help those displaced and facilitate recovery works.

Meanwhile, the Financial Services Commission decided to defer the repayment of the principal and interest of loans and guarantees received from policy financing institutions such as KDB and IBK by up to one year and extend their maturity dates. Furthermore, it intends to delay principal-interest repayment by up to six months or extend maturity dates regarding loans from commercial banks, saving banks and mutual financing cooperatives.


Choong-Hyun Song balgun@donga.com · Gun-Huk Lee gun@donga.com