German companies and individual donors participated in KGCCI’s donation rally to support Korea’s relief efforts for COVID-19
1,056,150,000 KRW were donated in cash or in-kind by 14 German companies and 8 individual members of the Korean-German business community in Korea to support Korean citizens suffering from COVID-19. The Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KGCCI) had called to participate in a 2-week donation rally in the beginning of March to support the efforts of the Korean government and organizations to provide and finance supplies for medical facilities, health workers and families affected by COVID-19 in Korea. The proceeds are being donated directly or via KGCCI to ‘Korea Red Cross’, ‘Hope Bridge Korea Disaster’ and ‘Community Chest of Korea’ to provide hospitals, disaster response facilities as well as self-isolated people and vulnerable low-income families with urgently required support.
Ms. Barbara Zollmann, President & CEO of the KGCCI, said that “on behalf of the member companies and individual donors who contributed to this donation rally during difficult economic times for everyone, KGCCI hopes that this donation can be of meaningful help to citizens across the country and health workers trying their hardest to counter COVID-19.” She commended the fast, sophisticated and transparent public response in Korea to the coronavirus crisis which receives much recognition internationally. Ms. Zollmann also underlined that, while COVID-19 is spreading globally, “next to tackling the health crisis, much of the economic recovery in Korea will depend on the South Korean government to adopt vast support measures for businesses in Korea to keep people employed, while companies are losing much of their global business for months to come.” She said measures could include creating new regulatory frameworks for flex-time working accounts and short-time working (“Kurzarbeit”), the latter allowing companies to reduce weekly working hours in order to cut payroll cost, while the Korea government temporarily makes up for the remainder of the salaries; tax incentives for keeping people on the payroll despite orders going down and making free-interest loans available to a larger number of industries than right now.
Donations were contributed by the following companies:
BASF Company Ltd. | BMW Group Korea | Boehringer Ingelheim Korea Ltd. | Carl Zeiss Co., Ltd. | Daimler Trucks Korea Ltd. | Fresenius Kabi Korea Ltd. | Fresenius Medical Care Korea Ltd. | Hella Korea Inc. | JUNG Korea Electric Co., Ltd. | Korean-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry | SAP Korea Ltd. And its social partners | Siemens Ltd. Seoul | Wilo Pumps Ltd. | Wuerth Korea Co., Ltd.
Individual Donors:
Nobert Behringer, Hee-Kyung Choi, Jung-Ryul Choi, Chirin Maike Eisele, Young-Jin Kim, Anja Lemmermöhle, Joo-Ho Park, Sun-Hwa Park