By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The Korea Land Corp (KLC) has actively provided financial support to ease credit shortage problems plaguing small-and medium-size companies, having set aside 12.7 trillion won ($90 billion) for investment in projects to help revive the economy and create more jobs, a 26 percent increase from a year earlier.
``We are going to spend 7.7 trillion won, or 61 percent of the total, in the first half to stimulate the sagging regional economy,'' KLC CEO Lee Jong-sang said. ``Our priority is to revive builders and other companies suffering fund shortages.''
More than 600 small companies are operating around Dongtan, Hwaseong City, Gyeonggi Province. Many of them, hit by plunging orders, are at the verge of going under. In many cases, they have difficulty getting loans from financial firms that are extremely cautious about lending due to concerns about debt defaults.
The state-run KLC has extended about 1.3 trillion won in loans with preferential interest rates in the form of bond deals to hundreds of companies doing business in the Dongtan region.
To create more jobs, the KLC plans to carry through about 170 construction projects worth nearly 5 trillion won this year while cutting interest rates on overdue loans to ease interest burdens on debt-ridden companies.