Jungjingong Confirms 10.5728 Trillion Won Jungjin Fund for 2021

Compared to the 2020 main budget of 9.634 trillion KRW, an increase of 938.8 billion KRW (9.7%)
Small and venture business policy funds expanded by 820 billion KRW (17.9%) to 5.41 trillion KRW

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Small and Medium Business Corporation (Chairman Kim Hak-do, hereinafter referred to as SBC) announced on the 8th that the scale of the 2021 Small and Medium Business Startup and Promotion Fund (hereinafter referred to as the SBC Fund) was finalized at 10.5728 trillion KRW after approval by the National Assembly plenary session. This is a 9.7% increase compared to this year's SBC Fund main budget of 9.634 trillion KRW. Among this, the policy fund support scale for the management stability and innovative growth of small and medium enterprises in the post-COVID-19 era is 5.41 trillion KRW, an increase of 820 billion KRW from 4.59 trillion KRW this year.

Based on this, SBC plans to first support the innovative growth of regional small and medium enterprises and the digitalization of manufacturing sites. The new growth foundation fund was set at 1.77 trillion KRW, an increase of 440 billion KRW compared to this year. Among these, the manufacturing site smartization fund is 600 billion KRW, increased by 100 billion KRW to expand linked support, thereby enhancing the operational efficiency of smart factories. In addition, a new budget of 4.4 billion KRW was allocated for the smart factory post-management project to analyze on-site difficulties of smart factory adopters and provide consulting and customized after-sales service (A/S). During the National Assembly budget review process, a new 'Net-Zero Promising Company Fund (loan)' of 20 billion KRW was established to promote green transition of small and medium enterprises and support eco-friendly and renewable energy sectors. In the Sejong area, a Youth Startup Academy will be newly established to nurture innovative young entrepreneurs and create new jobs.

SBC also plans to expand export footholds for small and medium enterprises in preparation for the post-COVID-19 era. The new market entry support fund was increased by 300 billion KRW to 500 billion KRW, and promising export items by region will be discovered and linked support will be provided from online market development to export incubators (BI). To this end, the export BI budget was expanded to 31.1 billion KRW, and support through non-face-to-face and online methods utilizing overseas bases will be strengthened. Additionally, a new online export living lab (localization support project) will be launched.

Efforts will also be made to overcome management crises of small and medium enterprises and strengthen responsiveness to industrial structure reorganization. The emergency management stabilization fund was expanded by 400 billion KRW to 500 billion KRW, and the re-leap support fund was increased by 40 billion KRW to 250 billion KRW. In particular, a new budget of 1.8 billion KRW was allocated for the small business proactive structural improvement project to support liquidity supply, debt adjustment, interest rate reduction, etc., and 1.1 billion KRW will be provided for business conversion promotion funds, laying the foundation for management normalization and re-leap through autonomous structural improvement of small and medium enterprises. Furthermore, the training project budget for small business workforce development was expanded by 6.8 billion KRW to 26.3 billion KRW to build a smart innovation learning platform. A budget of 10 billion KRW was also allocated to the Corporate Workforce Difficulty Center, and a matching program for small and medium enterprises building smart factories by age group will be introduced to create jobs.

Chairman Kim Hak-do said, "SBC will actively support the achievement of the Korean New Deal policy by strengthening continuous linked support for small and medium enterprises engaged in key regional development projects."

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