Customers shop for groceries at a supermarket located in Seoul on Sept. 28, 2020. (Yonhap)
DAEGU, Jan. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The mandatory closing day for large supermarkets will be changed from Sundays to Mondays in the southeastern city of Daegu, beginning next month, the municipal government said Monday, as part of a deregulatory move for the retail industry.
The Distribution Industry Development Act introduced in 2012 obliges super supermarkets (SSM), such as E-mart, Lotte Mart and Homeplus, to close their stores on the second and fourth Sundays of every month to support traditional markets and mom-and-pop stores.
The change of the mandatory closing day to weekdays can be made possible by amending each municipal ordinance, and Daegu, about 300 km southeast from Seoul, will become the first metropolitan city to do so.
As many as 51 low-level local governments across the country have so far included weekdays in compulsory SSM closing days.
The Daegu city government said the change of its compulsory SSM closing day is scheduled to take effect on Feb. 13 after a period of administrative notice until Feb. 2.
Thereafter, all SSMs in the city will be closed on the second and fourth Mondays of every month, it noted.
“It’s meaningful that Daegu has become the first metropolitan city to convert the mandatory SSM closing day to a weekday,” said Daegu Mayor Hong Joon-pyo.
Hong said he hopes the planned change would improve the development of the retail industry and people’s shopping convenience on holidays.
(Yonhap)
