Export Voucher Program Achieved Both Export Performance and Job Creation

Export Growth Rate of Supported Companies at 13.6%... 6,083 New Jobs Created by Export Voucher Participating Companies

Small and Medium Business Corporation

#.Bio company A, which manufactures nucleic acid extraction equipment, reagents, and molecular diagnostic kits, participated in the first export voucher project this year and received a voucher worth 70 million KRW. Company A utilized the voucher to lay the foundation necessary for exports, including renewing its foreign language website, registering intellectual property rights in major countries such as the United States, Japan, China, and Europe, and developing product packaging designs. As a result of active efforts to diversify export markets, this year's export amount reached a total of 68 million USD, marking an increase of approximately 2890% compared to 3 million USD the previous year, and employment increased from 397 employees last year to 540 this year, creating about 150 new jobs.

Companies participating in the export voucher project caught two rabbits this year: export performance and job creation. Despite the export environment rapidly deteriorating due to cancellations and postponements of overseas exhibitions and entry restrictions caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), the export performance and employment of companies supported by the export voucher increased.

On the 8th, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Park Young-sun, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry) and the Small and Medium Business Corporation (Chairman Kim Hak-do, hereinafter referred to as SBC) announced that they supported a total of 3,720 domestic and export companies with about 133.9 billion KRW, including the main budget of 99.7 billion KRW and supplementary budget of 34.1 billion KRW, to help normalize management and discover alternative export markets for export-challenged companies due to COVID-19 this year. The export voucher project, which started in 2017, is a marketing support project for overseas expansion that allows companies to freely select and use desired services and service providers from a menu of 12 export support services using vouchers in the form of online points composed of government subsidies and company contributions.

According to the Ministry and SBC, from January to September this year, the export amount of all small and medium-sized export companies decreased by 3% compared to the same period last year, but companies supported by the export voucher project increased their export amount by 13.6% compared to the same period last year, recording export performance 16.6 percentage points higher than the average of all small and medium-sized companies during the same period. Additionally, 41.8% of domestic companies with no prior export performance succeeded in new exports through support from the export voucher project, achieving over 40% export conversion of domestic companies for three consecutive years.

In particular, new employment in companies supported by the export voucher increased by 6,083 people (7.3%) compared to before the support. This achievement is evaluated to be due to the proactive administration of the Ministry and SBC, which responded preemptively to changes in the domestic and international export environment and reflected the voices of the field struggling with COVID-19 to provide practical help to companies.

Chairman Kim Hak-do stated, "Throughout this year, we have conducted proactive administration such as expanding the scale of support for the export voucher project and strengthening linked support through close consultation with related ministries and agencies to resolve export difficulties and drive performance for small and medium enterprises." He added, "Through the solid operation of the export voucher project, we will do our best to ensure that small and medium-sized ventures, which account for about 20% of the nation's total exports, continue to play a strong export support role sustaining the national economy and achieve results."

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