Hyundai Motor to spur sluggish consumption

By Park Jin-hai

Hyundai Motor Group announced a set of measures Tuesday to provide aid for the faltering domestic economy, hit hard recently by the nationwide MERS outbreak.

This was the second phase of a campaign, an offer last month to small shop owners and businessmen whereby they can delay payment on purchases of Hyundai cars for three months.

This time, the nation’s top automaker will hold international events, including dealers’ conventions, regional skills competitions and various seminars here between July and November that had been previously held in overseas markets.

It will also expand events inviting Chinese business partners and dealers to Korea, thus helping the local tourism industry.

“We expect inviting global dealers here will help revive the local tourism industry,” said a Hyundai official.

Following the outbreak of the respiratory disease, the number of Chinese tourists, the biggest contributor to local tourism industry, has shown a sharp decline. Their number shrank some 44 percent last month from the previous month, aggravating the local tourism industry.

The Korea Economic Research Institute estimates that the economic loss from the outbreak will amount to 20 trillion won if the virus lasts three months.

In the same vein, Hyundai will carry the campaign that its employees are encouraged to take vacations across the nation.

Additionally, Hyundai will purchase 10 billion won worth of vouchers to buy products at traditional markets.

The new customers of Hyundai cars will be given the option to choose between cash incentive or vouchers worth 110 percent of the cash incentive. The offer will be available for all July deliveries. “Not limited to our customers, our stimulus packages intend for the fast recovery of the local economy as a whole,” said the official. Through the various initiatives, we will do the best we can to revive the economy.”