Yoon Ja-young is in charge of articles translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times. She is interested in improving the newspaper through AI.
Hana Financial Group, CHA Medical Center to jointly tackle low birth rate
Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo, second from left, poses with Cha Kwang-yul, third from left, leader of global research at CHA Medical Center, after signing a memorandum of understanding to jointly tackle Korea's low birth rate problem at CHA Bio Complex in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday. With them are researchers of CHA Medical Center egg bank. Courtesy of Hana Financial Group
By Yoon Ja-young
By Yoon Ja-young
Amid the low birth rate pushing the country toward a demographic cliff, Hana Financial Group announced that it will tackle the problem jointly with CHA Medical Center, a globally known institute in the field of infertility treatment.
Hana Financial Group said it signed a strategic business agreement with CHA Medical Center at the CHA Bio Complex in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday.
Through the agreement, the financial group and the medical center will expand cooperation in diverse areas, including bolstering support for the group's female employees undergoing fertility treatments, special checkups or egg freezing.
The support is scheduled to be expanded to include not only Hana's female employees, but also around 6,000 female firefighters around the country. Through the support program, the female firefighters will be able to get CHA Medical Center's specialized fertility checkups for free and those wishing to undergo special procedures such as egg freezing will get subsidies from Hana.
On top of the cooperation with CHA Medical Center, Hana Financial Group plans to install lactation rooms in four of its buildings and expand it further to other regions around the country to minimize blind spots in rearing children.
“Since 2018, we have been engaged in a project to build 100 daycare centers to tackle the social problem of low births and support childcare. We have been supporting diverse programs to build up infrastructure to support the work-family balance,” Hana Financial Group Chairman Ham Young-joo said.
“The cooperation between Hana and CHA Medical Center will be a meaningful step in overcoming the problem of low births.”
Cha Kwang-yul, who leads global research at CHA Medical Center, said that the cooperation with Hana will contribute to overcoming low births. “I am sure that such efforts by Hana Financial Group will have a positive impact on other businesses as well,” he said.
He added that CHA Medical Center wants to tackle this problem by helping people overcome infertility and lower barriers to visiting ob-gyn clinics. “We plan to open an egg freezing center in Gangnam so that single women can check and preserve their fertility before it's too late.”