The council is chaired by Kyongnam Bank CEO Kim Tae-han and is made up of four groups: the Innovation Growth Finance Center, the Innovation Finance Support Division, the Future Growth Investment Division and the Regional Value-Up Division. The council held its first meeting at the bank’s headquarters, attended by Kim, division heads and department leaders.
Agenda items included sharing the status of key productive and inclusive finance initiatives, advancing external activities such as business cooperation agreements (MOUs) with institutions and local governments, and refining the organization’s operating structure. The bank said it will strengthen funding support for local industries and companies and seek opportunities to participate in policy and state-led projects to help foster and revitalize region-specific industries.
The bank also said it is actively promoting “regional productive finance,” a 4.3 trillion won program that broadly supports future-growth and innovative companies, region-specific industries, and local self-employed business owners and small and midsize firms.
Under the plan, the bank will provide tailored financing by growth stage for leading local companies and firms relocating to the region, including facility investment and trade finance, overseas expansion and shared growth with partner companies. It will offer additional interest-rate discounts to ease financing burdens for 11 advanced strategic industries, including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, secondary batteries, robotics, and aerospace and defense. It also plans to expand support for regional specialized industries such as maritime, shipbuilding, defense, logistics and aerospace.
“For regional growth, we need a productive finance model that creates value beyond the scale of financial support,” Kim said. “As a reliable partner that grows with the region, we will continue to do our best to create regional value.”
* This article has been translated by AI.
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