Changwon City Tightens Belt to Boost Economy

Written by Meenaa on Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

Changwon City has announced a set of steps to support companies and households in the southeastern city, home to the machinery industry.

It became the first provincial city to unveil comprehensive measures to boost the regional economy. It believes such steps will contribute to helping the nation tide over ongoing economic difficulties.

“The city will allocate a greater amount of next year’s budget to projects designed to boost the economy,’’ City Mayor Park Wan-su said. “At the same time, we are going to cut city government spending drastically.’’

Park said the city will cut the budget for employee training and other ceremonial events and use the saved funds for boosting the economy.

The city will spend 46 percent, or 450 billion won ($300 million) of 970 billion won of the budget for 2009 for the four main projects aimed to reinvigorate the economy. The projects are to boost small companies, to stimulate the construction industry, to create more jobs for youth and aid low-income households.

To support small-and midsize firms and mom-and-pop business owners, it will expand the budget for smaller firms to 150 billion won from the original plan of 100 billion won. Most of the funds will be used to provide guarantees for them to borrow funds from financial firms.

To boost the construction industry, the city will allocate more funds to road and other infrastructure businesses. It will frontload about 80 percent of its budget for the construction sector in the first half of 2009.

For more young people to land jobs, Changwon will spend more on job training programs and public works schemes. It will also select about 100 low-income households to provide financial support to.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr

The Korea Times
2008-11-18