Jeonbuk Province Provides 2 Billion Won to Support Growth Companies

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Jeonbuk Province announced on the 21st that it will promote a public contest for the ‘2020 Jeonbuk Province Leap Enterprises Development Project’ worth 2 billion KRW in provincial funds to intensively foster small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the local industrial sector.

This project, started as a new initiative last year, aims to select companies within the province that possess technological capabilities and high growth potential to nurture them as candidate leading enterprises, targeting support for a total of 75 companies by 2023.

Among the 15 companies selected as leap enterprises last year, business results showed an average sales increase of 1.25 billion KRW and an employment increase of 4.7 employees. Notably, the project produced ▲one company with sales exceeding 10 billion KRW (Unicamp Co., Ltd.) ▲one company with exports exceeding 1 million USD (Human Dream Co., Ltd.) ▲and five companies entering the candidate leading enterprise group (Seo Woo MS Co., Ltd., Metarobotics Co., Ltd., Peach Cable Co., Ltd., Human Dream Co., Ltd., Unicamp Co., Ltd.).

The announcement for the leap enterprise project contest will be posted on the Jeonbuk Province and Jeonbuk Technopark websites. Applications will be accepted from the 24th of this month until the 20th of next month, and 15 leap enterprises for 2020 will be selected in May.

Leap enterprises are part of the second-stage enterprise development program within Jeonbuk Province’s SME growth ladder system. Upon selection, companies receive customized support including growth strategy establishment, technology development, resolution of corporate technical difficulties, marketing, and consulting.

Eligibility requirements include companies in the manufacturing sector of Jeonbuk Province’s local industry with sales between 1 billion KRW and less than 5 billion KRW in the previous year (2019) (for ICT and bio-agriculture sectors, between 1 billion KRW and less than 2.5 billion KRW). Eligible companies must be SMEs with at least five full-time employees operating a research institute company, corporate-affiliated research institute, or dedicated research department.

Na Seok-hoon, Head of Jeonbuk Province’s Job and Economy Headquarters, said, “Through the leap enterprise development project, we hope that Jeonbuk’s growth-driving industries will be revitalized and that excellent SMEs with high growth potential in the province will become key players in regional economic revitalization and quality job creation. We will further strengthen Jeonbuk Province’s SME growth ladder system to foster many manufacturing SMEs in the province into leading companies with global competitiveness.”

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