Busan City Promotes '2020 Global Small Giant Enterprise Development Project'

Recruitment of Participating Companies Until the 2nd of Next Month

Busan City Hall exterior view. (Photo by Busan City Hall)

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Yoon Yoseop] Busan City announced on the 11th that it will recruit companies to participate in the ‘2020 Global Small Giant Company Development Project’ aimed at nurturing promising small and medium enterprises into global companies until the 2nd of next month.

This project, in collaboration with Busan Technopark and the Busan Regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administration, plans to select and support 14 companies this year. Since 2014, it has discovered 63 export-oriented small and medium enterprises with innovation and growth potential and nurtured them into global companies leading exports.

Selected companies will receive export vouchers supported by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups through overseas marketing support programs, covering 50-70% of the total project cost, up to 100 million KRW annually, with a limit of 200 million KRW over four years. Busan City operates a regional autonomous support program providing about 20 million KRW per company for prototype production, research equipment utilization, education and consulting, production process and quality improvement, etc. They can also receive guarantees and financial support from the Small and Medium Business Corporation and financial institutions.

Eligibility requires small and medium enterprises with sales between 10 billion and 100 billion KRW in 2018 and direct or indirect export amounts exceeding 5 million USD last year. Innovative companies include venture companies, Inno-Biz companies, and Main-Biz companies, with sales between 5 billion and 100 billion KRW and direct or indirect export amounts exceeding 1 million USD.

Especially this year, to select excellent small and medium enterprises, in addition to the method where hopeful companies apply directly, a new national recommendation system has been introduced to accept applications, and extra points are given to companies participating in export-oriented technology development projects or regional star companies.

Applications are possible at the Small and Medium Enterprise Export Support Center until the 2nd of next month. The national recommendation system accepts applications through the Ministry of SMEs and Startups website.

Kim Donghyun, Head of the Advanced Materials Industry Division of Busan City, said, “We will intensively discover promising companies that need overseas marketing, increase national funding support, and nurture them to lead the global advancement of local companies.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.