[3rd Supplementary Budget] "Turning Crisis into Opportunity"... 3.7 Trillion Won Allocated for Venture and Startup Development

Park Young-sun, Minister of SMEs and Startups./Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Hyewon] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 3rd that this year's third supplementary budget proposal will be set at 3.7 trillion won, an increase of 600 billion won from the first supplementary budget (3.1 trillion won).

The Ministry explained that it has significantly allocated 581.7 billion won for expanding infrastructure and investment environment for startups and venture companies in the non-face-to-face sector.

Specifically, joint video conferencing infrastructure will be established at 1,562 SME and venture company clusters to allow free use, and 311.4 billion won will be invested in a voucher program (4 million won per year) to support 80,000 SMEs and venture companies in adopting non-face-to-face work such as telecommuting and video conferencing by the end of the year.

Kang Seongcheon, Vice Minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said at a briefing, "Large corporations can receive help from local branches when conducting overseas exports and other tasks, but SMEs face great difficulties as they must resolve issues on their own without support agencies," adding, "We plan to install joint video conferencing centers that SMEs can easily use and gradually provide interpretation support."

The Ministry also included an additional 50.5 billion won in this supplementary budget to enable small business owners and SMEs to focus on digitalization by utilizing 'D(Data)ㆍN(Network)ㆍA(AI)' technologies. For small business owners, the number of smart stores equipped with smart mirrors, logistics, serving, and ordering systems will be expanded from about 1,000 to about 6,400. For small-scale manufacturing workshops, support for smartization by integrating device automation and IoT sensors into manual processes will increase from 20 locations to 80.

To expand the local consumption base for micro small business owners and SMEs struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 341.2 billion won has been allocated. In particular, to revitalize traditional markets, following the 10% discount sale of 500 billion won in the first supplementary budget, an additional 2 trillion won worth of gift certificates will be sold at a 10% discount.

Guarantee supply at the level of 35 trillion won will also be promoted. Through the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund, guarantees worth about 26.7 trillion won will be supplied for COVID-19 special cases and the second financial package for small business owners. Through the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, 1.4 trillion won worth of guarantees will be supplied for special guarantees for non-face-to-face and digital sector companies (1 trillion won) and small business owners (300 billion won), with a plan to contribute 2.6 trillion won from the basic assets of the Korea Technology Finance Corporation. Additionally, through regional credit guarantee foundations, the expansion of guarantee supply worth about 6.9 trillion won for local small business owners will be pursued.

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