Announcement of measures to stabilize public livelihood ahead of Lunar New Year... Highway toll exemption, etc.

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Ahead of Lunar New Year, the government is working to stabilize prices by supplying 210,000 tons of holy water products, the largest ever.

In addition, energy vouchers are paid up to twice as much to the underprivileged.

Reporter Song Wook reports.

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government held an emergency economic ministers meeting presided over by Deputy Prime Minister Choo Kyung-ho and announced measures to stabilize the people's livelihood for the Lunar New Year.

In order to keep prices low, we supply 208,000 tons of 16 major Lunar New Year items such as cabbage, radish, and pork, the largest ever.

We also invest KRW 30 billion, the largest ever, in a discount event for agricultural and fishery products, providing support for discounts of up to 60%.

This Lunar New Year, tolls are exempted on national highways, and parking lots of local governments and public institutions can be used free of charge.

During the winter, we decided to slightly raise the unit price of energy use rights for the vulnerable.

[Chu Gyeong-ho/Deputy Prime Minister of Economy and Finance: Despite the electricity rate hike this year, we will significantly expand rate discounts to minimize the burden on the vulnerable, and we will additionally increase the unit price of energy vouchers this winter to 152,000 won.]

In particular, child heads of households and single parents In the case of kerosene, which has recently skyrocketed in price for vulnerable households, the license has more than doubled.

This month, the discount rate for Onnuri gift certificates in traditional markets has also increased from 5% to 10%.

For SMEs and microbusiness owners, we plan to provide loans and guarantees worth 39 trillion won through national banks.

At today's (4th) meeting, other measures such as jobs and prices were also presented.

The government announced that it would execute more than 60% of this year's budget in the first half of the year and directly employ 940,000 people through job creation projects.

The direct job creation project provides temporary jobs for the elderly and others at a budgetary cost, and this year, about 14,000 more than last year.