Doosan Infracore said, on July 27, that it had created two funds valued at 20 billion won each with the Industrial Bank of Korea and the Korea Development Bank to provide financial assistance to its small- and medium-sized partner companies. As part of this initiative, the Company has begun the extension of loans to small- and mid-sized suppliers.

The beneficiaries of these shared-growth funds, which were launched through the signing of MOUs, on July 26 and 27, respectively, are 435 partner companies that signed a shared-growth agreement with Doosan Infracore. They are eligible for loans for operational and facility costs, which have an interest rate up to 3.31 percentage points lower than the standard rate. As a result, if a supplier company takes a 500 million-won loan at an interest rate of 7 percent, it can save 16.55 million won in interest payments per year if it borrows the same amount from the shared-growth fund at a super prime rate of 3.69 percent per annum.

Doosan Infracore also created a shared-growth fund worth 18 billion won in 2011.

Additionally, Doosan Infracore is providing 210 billion won in assistance to partner companies this year in the form of introductions to facilities and equipment, network loans, family company loans, and funding from the Machinery Industry Shared-growth Promotion Foundation. It is also helping ease the financial difficulties facing its partners by making all payments with cash or cash-equivalents.

Woo-Young Lee, in charge of shared growth at Doosan Infracore, said, “Boosting the competitiveness of partner companies is the path towards establishing a long-term partnership tat represents a virtuous cycle.” He added, “We Hope that that the establishment of the new funds will help partner firms improve their financial soundness.”