Up to 10 million won to be provided in assistance for small businesses

Small business owners and companies affected by social distancing rules to stop the spread of COVID-19 and reported a drop in sales by more than 60 percent will receive up to 10 million won in COVID-19 compensation package. Meanwhile, 22.7 million low-income households will be able to receive up to 1 million won.

On Thursday, the first cabinet meeting, which was presided over by President Yoon Suyeol, and passed 34.9 trillion won supplementary budget bill, the biggest extra budget bill in hisis also the new administration’s first supplementary budget and the second in 2022. The budget size will total 59.4 trillion won if combined with the amount to be expensed as local subsidy, etc.

The core of the supplementary budget bill is to provide assistance to small and solo businesses. A total of 24.5 trillion won, which takes up 70% of the entire supplementary budget, will be injected to keep President Yoon’s campaign promise of the “full compensation of damage.” Up to 10 million won of compensation will be disbursed to about 3.7 million small business owners and SMEs. When combined with the first and second COVID-19 support package, small and micro businesses will be provided with up to 14 million won.

The issuance of treasury bonds will not be made, and the assistance package will be funded from excess tax revenue. The government made tax calculation error of more than 60 trillion won last year, and it projected that this year’s tax revenue will increase by 53.3 trillion won, way above the initial projection.

President Yoon will organize a meeting to examine the nation’s microfinance condition on Friday, indicating that he takes the situation very seriously. Participants include Deputy Prime Minister and Economic Minister Choo Kyung-ho, Bank of Korea Governor Lee Chang-yong, and other civil experts in the field.


Hee-Chang Park ramblas@donga.com · Su-Young Hong gaea@donga.com