Ryan, a chatting character of South Korea’s messenger app Kakao Talk, cheers Kakao Games’ listing in the secondary KOSDAQ market on Sept. 10, 2020, in this photo provided by bourse operator Korea Exchange.
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The ruling Democratic Party is discussing ways to get lucrative companies to share some of their profits with small businesses vulnerable to losses amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The IT industry, one of the beneficiaries of the pandemic era, is leading the charge.
South Korea’s top mobile messenger operator Kakao Corp. is currently discussing ways to carry out founder and chairman Kim Beom-soo’s vow to donate half of his ‘fortune’.
He owns over 10 trillion won (US$9.1 billion) in Kakao stock.
While his plans for donation are still at large, many expect that he will directly sponsor a person, not an organization, to solve social problems.
Naver Corp., the operator of South Korea’s dominant Internet portal, has joined hands with small and medium enterprises, its business partner for platform businesses, to come up with ways for coexistence.
One of them focuses on supporting sellers on Smart Store, Naver’s shopping platform, by delivering sales profit to the sellers more quickly than before.
In addition, requirements for business loans have been eased for sellers by changing the requirement of maintaining 1 million won in monthly sales for three consecutive months to 500,000 won.
Woowa Brothers Corp., the country’s largest food delivery app operator that has also benefited from the pandemic, is also investing efforts to support delivery riders and food vendors.
The company recently distributed 200 million won worth of winter equipment to delivery riders and formed a 2 billion won fund to pay for living stipends, insurance and medical fees.
It has spent more than 81.3 billion won since last year as part of efforts to support businesses struggling from the pandemic.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
