Ministry of SMEs and Startups Cuts Regulatory Costs by 240 Billion KRW for 230,000 Companies through Regulatory Impact Assessment

Easing Management Burdens for SMEs Struggling with COVID-19

#. The A Industrial Complex Resident Companies Council appealed that it is an excessive burden to require companies that have acquired buildings through relocation or auction to input related information each time for inspection and maintenance, given that most of them have lost the original design documents under the current circumstances. In response, when establishing regulations for recording, storing, and maintaining building-related information, the government excluded factories and knowledge industry centers and narrowed the scope to cases requiring building permits or notifications. The number of beneficiary companies reaches 30,000.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Park Young-sun, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry) announced on the 9th that through this year's SME regulatory impact assessment, it reviewed 1,552 regulations from various ministries, submitted 86 improvement plans, and amended 55 of them. As a result, it reduced regulatory costs for about 230,000 SMEs by 243.3 billion KRW, deferred implementation timing, or prevented retroactive application, thereby enhancing regulatory compliance for 300,000 companies.

The SME regulatory impact assessment is a system where the Ministry evaluates the impact on SMEs when central administrative agencies establish or strengthen regulations, preventing the enactment of unreasonable or excessively burdensome regulations in advance. This year, due to the economic crisis caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), the Ministry explained that it actively proposed improvement plans at 2.5 times the level of last year to prevent regulations that cause excessive burdens on companies.

Lee Byung-kwon, Policy Planning Officer and head of the Ministry’s Regulatory Reform Task Force, said, "Since the COVID-19 pandemic, regulations have acted as a hidden tax that makes SMEs even more difficult," adding, "With the support of related ministries for regulatory innovation, we were able to achieve more improvements than in the past, alleviating the burdens on SMEs." Minister Park Young-sun stated, "Regulatory reform is an investment that costs nothing and is the most effective way to enhance corporate competitiveness without fiscal input," and added, "We will lead innovation and change not only through regulatory impact assessments but also by designating regulatory free zones and implementing the SME Ombudsman system."

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