Kim Hak-do "Local SMEs Must Prosper... Strengthening Communication and Cooperation with the Convergence Association"

Kim Hak-do, President of the Small and Medium Business Corporation (center), is discussing policy fund support and communication cooperation at a meeting with the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business held on the 15th at the JH Legend Hotel in Daejeon.

[Daejeon=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daeseop] "For South Korea to prosper, local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must thrive. You are the ones creating jobs."

Kim Hak-do, Chairman of the Small and Medium Business Corporation (SBC), held his first official meeting with the Korea Federation of SMEs. On the 15th at the JH Legend Hotel in Daejeon, he met with Kang Seung-gu, Chairman of the Federation, and about 40 regional federation heads, emphasizing this point and stating, "SMEs are facing many difficulties due to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), but moving forward, we will strengthen communication and cooperation with the Federation and maintain close exchanges."

The Korea Federation of SMEs was established in 1994. With approximately 6,500 domestic and international member companies, it promotes inter-industry exchange and convergence activities among SMEs. Chairman Kang said, "The Federation has a stronger unifying power than any other SME organization. We are also enhancing our status and role as a leading organization for innovative growth of SMEs through exchange and convergence," adding, "We will strengthen our relationship as partners growing together with SBC."

Chairman Kim emphasized, "At SBC, we are supporting SMEs to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. We are also revising regulations to help SMEs adapt to the post-COVID era and improving regulations that do not fit current realities."

Due to the surge in affected companies caused by the spread of COVID-19, SBC increased emergency management stabilization funds from the initial 100 billion KRW to 1.3 trillion KRW through supplementary budgets and fund reallocations. To provide rapid support to affected companies, SBC has improved support systems by expanding online exclusive consultation windows, the Ambulance Man system, and Hi-Pass screening.

Chairman Kim stressed, "In particular, we are promoting various policies such as innovation of social safety nets that enable SMEs to leap forward, improvement of non-face-to-face (untact) systems in the loan process, digital innovation including smartification of individual factories, and innovation in regionally tailored industrial sectors."

At the meeting, participants from the Korea Federation of SMEs proposed support for SMEs affected by COVID-19, assistance in establishing untact overseas distribution networks, and expansion of services applying the export voucher post-settlement system.

Jung Hyun-sook, Chairwoman of the Gyeongnam Federation, said, "Export-import companies are suffering serious damage due to delivery disruptions caused by overseas factory shutdowns, reduced business opportunities from fewer overseas trips, and increased costs for domestic substitutes due to difficulties in importing raw materials," adding, "The current repayment period for SBC policy fund loans is three months, but to overcome the COVID-19 crisis, a grace period of one year or more is necessary."

Kim Dae-yong, Chairman of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Federation, also emphasized, "We need to prepare policies for securing growth engines for SMEs through expanded scale-up financing and for the post-COVID era," and added, "The screening process for fund disbursement should be simplified and the entire process streamlined to enable rapid funding support."

In response, Chairman Kim said, "We will strive to ensure that scale-up financing can be broadly supported without being limited to specific sectors to assist SMEs that find it difficult to issue corporate bonds based on their own credit for direct financial funding." He also emphasized, "Considering the economic situation including COVID-19, we will improve the system so that companies with high debt ratios or those on the edge can also consult and apply."

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