Mayor Choo Kyung-ho pulls out all the stops to revive the local economy with financial institutions

【Financial News, Daegu = Kim Jang-wook, Staff Writer】“Local financial institutions must play an active role in stabilizing the economy and expanding local growth drivers.”
Daegu Mayor Choo Kyung-ho met with heads of local financial institutions in Conference Room 1 at the Sanggyeok Government Office on the 12th and called for their active role and cooperation to support local businesses and small business owners struggling with financing difficulties and financial costs.
At the meeting, Mayor Choo said, “While domestic economic growth is strong and per capita GDP is rising sharply, private consumption growth is only 1%. With polarization, including so-called K-shaped growth, leaving the economy that citizens actually experience in quite a difficult state, the financial sector’s role in supporting the local economy is all the more important.”
He stressed the need for financial institutions to respond actively, saying that the most important thing is to proactively supply liquidity and provide the necessary funds in a timely manner so that small and medium-sized businesses and small business owners do not have difficulty obtaining financing due to temporary business difficulties or a lack of collateral or credit.
He also called for institutions to actively develop a range of support measures to ease the financial burden of high interest rates, including expanding guarantee coverage, offering preferential interest rates, extending loan maturities and deferring principal repayments.
He further requested a substantial increase by each financial institution in its special contributions to the Daegu Credit Guarantee Foundation to actively support small business owners with insufficient collateral.
He also raised the need to actively provide locally tailored financial products, such as guarantee programs under agreements for economically vulnerable sectors, to support struggling construction companies and others through cooperation between credit guarantee institutions and commercial financial institutions.
Finally, he called for additional support measures for local young people, including new startup funding for young entrepreneurs, a range of work-experience programs such as internships, and job fairs.
The financial institutions in attendance shared information on lending to and support for local businesses and small business owners. In particular, Hana Bank is expanding its support for local small business owners, making a special contribution of 9.65 billion won to the Daegu Credit Guarantee Foundation this year—286% more than the 2.5 billion won contributed the previous year.
All the financial institutions also expressed strong understanding of the difficult business conditions facing local small and medium-sized businesses and small business owners. They plan to work closely with their headquarters to strengthen financial support for them and strive to increase their 2027 special contributions to the Daegu Credit Guarantee Foundation beyond this year’s level.
Mayor Choo stressed, “Financial institutions posting record-high operating results amid high interest rates should not be content with their own achievements,” adding, “I once again urge financial institutions to take a more proactive approach and provide support so that people can overcome these difficult times.”

[email protected] Kim Jang-wook Reporter