Large retailers pressed to cut operating hours in S. Korea

SEOUL, Feb. 10 (Yonhap) -- Seoul and a number of other municipal governments nationwide are drawing fire from the nation's retail giants for moving to implement new limits on their stores' operating hours, part of a drive to support small retailers and traditional marketplaces. The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced earlier this week that it had notified its 25 local district offices last month to prepare the enacting ordinances necessary to carry out a new retailer regulation law set to go into effect in March. The law compels discount store chains and super-supermarkets (SSMs) run by retail giants E-Mart, Homeplus and Lotte Mart to close for one to two days a month. It also forbids them from being open between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. every day in a bid to protect the livelihoods of small merchants, including those operating in traditional marketplaces. Any offenders will face up to 30 million (US$26,816) in fines, according to the law. Currently, a majority of such stores are open every day and some operate until as late as 1 a.m. Officials say city authorities plan to announce a standard ordinance for district offices after the central government finalizes its legislation of an enforcement ordinance late this month. The regulation, if introduced, will affect 64 discount chain stores and 267 SSMs in the capital. The metropolitan government's move came a day after Jeonju's city council passed an ordinance that requires discount chains and SSMs to close on the second and fourth Sundays of each month, the first such ordinance in the country. Similar moves were spotted in such regions as Busan, Incheon, Gwangju, Iksan in North Jeolla Province, Daejeon and South Chungcheong Province. The Daejeon city government said, for instance, on Thursday that each of its district offices will soon enact strong regulations limiting business hours to between 8 a.m. and midnight every day and introducing two mandatory holidays per month. But the nationwide move is already facing strong opposition from the discount chains as the measures are feared to curtail their sales. An association of discount chains said they will file a complaint with the Constitutional Court against the new law and related provincial government ordinances. "Designating mandatory holidays would be of no help to protecting small merchants but would only infringe on the freedom of discount chains and cause consumer inconvenience," an association official said. (END)