South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance held a policy finance inspection meeting with the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) to review execution of KEXIM’s crisis-response special programme for Korean firms directly and indirectly affected by the Middle East war, and to discuss additional measures that companies can feel on the ground. KEXIM has expanded the programme by KRW 3 trillion, taking the total from KRW 7 trillion to KRW 10 trillion, and is offering loan maturity extensions and repayment deferrals for affected small and medium-sized enterprises. Under its supply chain stabilisation programme, it will widen interest-rate preferential treatment for resource and energy items, increasing the discount for crude oil and gas from 0.2 percentage points to 0.7 percentage points and for minerals and food from 0.5 percentage points to 0.7 percentage points. As of 25 March, the crisis-response programme had reached an execution rate of about 20% against its target, with KEXIM stepping up regional integrated marketing and broad-based customer engagement. The ministry and KEXIM will continue to monitor war-related corporate impacts and supply chain conditions on an ongoing basis and provide support, with KEXIM maintaining its emergency response framework.

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