[On-Site Video+] Yoon, "Next year's budget for small business owners will be raised to a maximum of 5.9 trillion won."

[Anchor]
President Yoon Suk Yeol attended a debate on people's livelihoods in Gongju, Chungcheongnam-do. Today, support measures for small business owners and self-employed people are expected to be the main contents. Let's connect President Yoon to the scene of his opening remarks.

[President Yoon Suk Yeol]
Do you happen to know what my first presidential election pledge is? It was to save small business owners and self-employed people. The first national task of our government is the recovery and leap of small business owners and self-employed people. Self-employed, small business owners are the basis of the country. In agricultural countries, self-employed farmers are the basis of the country, and in industrial countries, self-employed and small business owners are the basis of the country. Only when you do well can the country develop. As I turned the halfway point of my term, I said that I would put the center of state administration in the second half of the year on overcoming polarization. Small business owners account for 95% of all companies in Korea and 45% of employment. In addition, 20% of all employed people in Korea are self-employed. After all, small business owners and self-employed people must be able to find vitality and work excitedly to overcome polarization. The government will take forward-looking measures to boost domestic consumption so that you can be more empowered. There are three main topics to discuss today.

The first is to provide thicker support for small business owners and self-employed people. The second is how to solve regulations and difficulties that bother you. Finally, it is a way to revitalize the local commercial district, which is a living ground. The government will provide all-time support for small business owners and self-employed people who are struggling. As soon as our government was launched, it boldly set up an extra budget and provided you with more than 30 trillion won. This year, we are implementing a total of 36 trillion won in additional support measures twice in July and October. However, the difficulty has not been solved as the interest burden continues due to the global high interest rate situation and the recovery of domestic demand has been delayed. As it is an unprecedented situation, we will provide unprecedented support. First of all, next year's budget for small business owners has set aside a record 5.9 trillion won. In addition, the government and the private sector plan to work together to relieve additional burdens such as fees. The biggest burden for self-employed people these days is delivery fees. In addition to the basic delivery fee, you have to pay an average of 9.8% of the brokerage fee, so it is said that your belly is bigger than your belly. What kind of business can we do here? We will reduce delivery fees for major platform companies by more than 30%, mainly for small stores. In particular, all traditional markets will apply a 0% fee. Many people use mobile gift certificates these days, and the fee ranges from 5% to 14% and the settlement cycle is long. It will be difficult because you have to pay a lot of fees and the cash comes in late. We will come up with a win-win plan within this year to lower fees and shorten the settlement cycle.

Second, we will make special efforts to solve the practical difficulties you experience in the field. These days, there are many owners who are struggling with no shows that are reserved and provisional, or malicious reviews that make them close their stores. The government will pay great attention to improving the reservation deposit system and dispute resolution standards and spreading the right reservation culture. We will create 90 malicious review reporting counseling centers across the country and push for preemptive measures to quickly delete or hide them if they are found to be malicious reviews or comments. We will continue to find unreasonable regulations that do not fit the on-site situation and actively abolish them. The regulation on the use of disposable cups is typical. There are cases where a customer orders a disposable cup to be taken out, and then sits in the store and drinks it without knowing, and gets caught in a crackdown. In fact, the fine should be paid by the store owner, not the customer. The fine is 3 million won, but it's not usually unfair. We will waive fines so that there will be no damage to store owners who faithfully guided us. Also, there is a lot of online promotion these days, and it usually costs over millions of won on a yearly contract. However, there are many cases where it is not well known whether it has actually been advertised and it is often ineffective. Then, when you try to cancel, there are many cases where you ask for an excessive penalty or refuse a refund. We will quickly create a dispute settlement body that can be resolved without going to court in the event of a dispute. Finally, we will step up efforts to save local commercial areas. In the meantime, many policies have been promoted to revitalize local commercial districts, but there have been many limitations with government-led policies. On the other hand, the number of cases of saving local commercial areas based on human creative ideas is increasing rapidly. The commercial districts around Gongju Jaemin Village or Daejeon Seongsimdang are good examples.

In particular, Jongwon Baek has significantly changed the budget market with private commercial district planning. We will foster 1,000 private commercial district planners who will be in charge of this. At the same time, we will create a 500 billion won local commercial development fund and fund by 2027. If the commercial district planner properly plans a commercial district that suits the characteristics of the region, we will use this fund and the fund to provide smooth support. In addition, we will commercialize local resources such as culture, tourism, and specialties and use them for the development of local commercial areas. In France, local production centers that commercialize the ideas of small business owners are emerging as a regional development model.

We will create more than 10 local creative spaces nationwide that benchmark local production centers. In addition, we will create a new type of local commercial district that links commercial districts, housing, and life by creating a local vitality town, a residential complex. However, in the first place, there are not many stores in population-decreased areas, so they often do not even meet support requirements. We will ease the requirements for designating commercial districts to suit reality so that all regions can enjoy the benefits of the policy fairly. Today is the first debate on people's livelihoods in the second half of the year. Just as small business owners and self-employed people were at the forefront at the beginning of their term, state affairs in the second half of the year will do their best to overcome polarization and open a new middle class era with you. In addition, we will boldly pursue policies that can boost people's consumption as well as corporate investment. That way, self-employed and small business owners can live. Please convey the voice of the field without any addition or subtraction today and give us a lot of good opinions. Thank you.