A study said the nation's restaurant industry was hit hard by Middle East respiratory syndrome.
The Korea Foodservice Industry Research Institute conducted a survey on 560 food service establishments for a week between June 8 and 14 and found that their average sales revenue fell 38.5 percent from two weeks ago.
In terms of decrease rate for weekend dinner sales, western-style restaurants were highest at 53.3 percent, followed by Japanese (47.5%), Korean (43.8%), and Chinese (43.7%). In contrast, the decline rate for fast food restaurants such as those serving pizza, hamburger, and fried chicken was relatively low at 29.1 percent.
In response to the panic-like sales plunge, the government will announce measures such as a ceiling increase in the deemed input tax credit while extending the time limit by one year to the end of 2016 in consultation with the finance ministry. The deemed input tax credit is a scheme by which the tax authority returns a certain amount of taxes to food service operators as they are deemed to have paid taxes in the process of purchasing farm, fishery, and livestock goods.
In addition, the government will increase the subsidy fund for the food service industry to 30 billion won from current 2.7 billion won while reducing the policy loan rate from current 3-4 percent in consideration of the current hardship suffered by food service operators due to the MERS epidemic.
