By Lee Hana
President Moon Jae-in on April 22 announced the allocation of an additional KRW 85 trillion in emergency funding to stabilize key sectors and employment amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the fifth meeting of the Emergency Economic Council at Cheong Wa Dae, he expressed his administration's strong determination to safeguard the country's core industries and jobs from the coronavirus.
"We will decide on special measures to protect people's jobs and rapidly cope with this crisis facing key industries and the shocks to employment," he said.
First, the president said "a key industry stabilization fund" worth KRW 40 trillion will be "urgently raised to overcome the crisis and protect employment."
"The government will use the key industry stabilization fund to prevent those industries from collapsing. We will mobilize all available methods to support businesses, including investments and payment guarantees – going beyond tentative liquidity supply," he added.
"In return for injecting taxpayer money to protect our key industries, we will require those businesses provided support to assume corresponding responsibilities. We will also stipulate requisite measures for businesses, including the maintenance of (the) total number of jobs, self-rescue efforts and profit-sharing."
In addition, the president said KRW 35 trillion will be added to the KRW 100 trillion worth of emergency financial measures decided in the council's first and second meetings, adding, "Through this total of KRW 135 trillion, we will expand support for micro-business owners and corporate bond purchases as well as increase liquidity support even for companies with low credit ratings."
He added that in a separate move, the government will inject KRW 10 trillion into emergency measures to secure employment to respond to the emerging shock to employment due to COVID-19. "We will drastically reduce blind spots in the employment safety net to provide tight-knit support, while focusing on preventing an unemployment crisis by backing employment retention," he said.
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