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by IANS |
Seoul, March 30 (IANS) The South Korean government will grant "emergency disaster relief money" to a majority of the country's households in a one-off stimulus program to help with the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, President Moon Jae-in said Monday.
He also unveiled a plan to seek another supplementary budget during a third session of the emergency economic council at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, reports Yonhap News Agency.
"The government has decided to pay emergency disaster relief money," directly to South Koreans struggling to make ends meet due to the pandemic, he said.
Under the scheme, 1 million won ($820) would be given to a four-person household, of which gross income stays at or below 70 per cent of the total.
It represents an earnings limit for the aid program, meaning individuals with relatively low income would get paid in accordance with the standard.
The Finance Ministry is expected to make relevant details public later in the day.
Around 14 million households comprising 35 million people would be eligible for the aid.
Monday's announcement comes after Moon earlier this month launched the council to make quick policy decisions and take action to minimize the economic fallout of COVID-19, reports Yonhap News agency.
In the two previous sessions, he approved a set of emergency measures, including 100 trillion won of financial support for the business sector, amid concerns about credit and liquidity crunches.
Meanwhile, South Korea saw a slight decline in new coronavirus cases Monday, but cluster infections in Seoul and the surrounding area continued to emerge, coupled with an increase in imported cases.
The 78 new COVID-19 cases, detected on Sunday and down from 105 new cases a day earlier, marked the 18th consecutive day that new infections have hovered around 100 or fewer additional cases, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).
The total number of cases as of Monday stood at 9,661, while the death toll rose by six to 158.
Health authorities once again stressed a "no-tolerance" policy in dealing with violators of the two-week self-isolation, adding that South Korean nationals will face lawsuits and foreigners will be expelled.
Starting Wednesday, the country will enforce a two-week mandatory quarantine on all entrants from overseas in a drastic move to curb a steady rise in imported cases.
