Ministry of SMEs and Startups Calls for Export-Leading Global Small Giants... Marketing and R&D Support Provided

Applications Open Until the 8th of Next Month... Relaxed Eligibility Criteria for SMEs in the Service Sector

Park Young-sun, Minister of SMEs and Startups, is delivering a greeting at the 'Declaration Ceremony for Growing Together with 100 Strong Small Giants' held on the 15th at the Geomungo Hall of The-K Hotel in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heeyoon] The government is set to discover export-oriented small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with innovation and growth potential, designate them as global strong SMEs, and foster them as representative companies leading the global export market and regional economy.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 5th that it will recruit participants for the '2021 Global Strong SMEs Development Project' until the 8th of next month.

The Global Strong SMEs Development Project is a program to discover export SMEs with innovation and growth potential and nurture them as leading export companies and regional representative companies. It is promoted in cooperation with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, local governments, and related regional organizations, and since its inception in 2011, a total of 1,443 companies have been designated up to this year.

The designation criteria are export SMEs with sales between 10 billion and 100 billion KRW and direct or indirect export amounts of 5 million USD or more. From this year, the eligibility requirements for SMEs in the service sector have been relaxed to an export amount of 1 million USD or more to promote overseas expansion of service companies.

Companies designated as global strong SMEs will receive customized package support such as overseas marketing and local government autonomous programs provided by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, local governments, and private financial institutions over the next four years through a central-local-private cooperation model.

Additionally, preferential points for participation in the SME technology development project will be increased, and R&D (technology development) for overseas certification standard-compliant products will be newly established. Furthermore, participation of private financial institutions will be expanded, strengthening R&D financing and guarantee support compared to last year.

The direct export performance of companies designated as global strong SMEs increased by 2.3% in 2019 compared to 2018. This figure surpassed the export growth rates of large enterprises (-13.5%) and mid-sized enterprises (-4.6%) during the same period. The sales growth rate in 2019 was 4.0% compared to the previous year, outperforming large enterprises (-2.3%) and mid-sized enterprises (-1.3%). The operating profit margin in 2019 was also confirmed to be 5.8%, higher than that of large enterprises (4.8%) and mid-sized enterprises (5.0%).

Meanwhile, applications for the global strong SMEs recruitment are accepted through the Export Support Center website. Evaluation will be conducted through document review, on-site evaluation, and presentation evaluation.

No Yongseok, Director of Global Growth Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, "Global strong SMEs, which are the solid backbone of the jar-shaped economy, showed higher corporate growth rates than large and mid-sized enterprises despite unfavorable external export conditions in 2019 such as the US-China trade war and Japan's export regulations." He added, "We will spare no effort to support global strong SMEs to grow into export companies leading the global market by strengthening overseas marketing and local government autonomous programs."

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