Kwon Chil-seung "Small Business Recovery is the Goal... Will Spark a Startup Boom"

Ministry of SMEs and Startups 2021 Work Report... Focus on Overcoming COVID-19 Damage
Fostering Digital Ventures and Startups and Activating Profit-Sharing System
Selected 100 Leading Regional Innovation Companies... Established 1 Trillion Won Win-Win Cooperation Fund

Minister Kwon Chil-seung of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is announcing the 2021 business plan on the 16th at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) is stepping up support for small business owners struggling due to COVID-19 this year and accelerating their business recovery. It also announced plans to nurture innovative ventures and startups as key players in a leading economy.

On the 16th, during a pre-briefing for a work report, MSS Minister Kwon Chil-seung emphasized, "The most important mission and urgent goal of the MSS is to breathe new vitality and confidence into the field of small and medium enterprises, ventures, and small business owners."

To this end, direct support measures to overcome COVID-19 damage will be promoted, including 4.1 trillion won in emergency relief funds and 4 trillion won in special loans for rent purposes. Additionally, incentives such as expanded tax support will be strengthened to spread the Good Landlord Movement.

They will revitalize the commercial districts of small business owners, which have been depressed due to COVID-19, by establishing 100 digital traditional markets, 20,000 smart stores, and 800 smart supermarkets.

The MSS will expand employment and re-startup programs in collaboration with the private sector. For example, in cooperation with LH, small business owners will be able to enter commercial spaces without a deposit for one year when restarting their businesses. A new business commercialization fund for re-startups (targeting 1,200 people, up to 10 million won) will also be established.

In addition, plans include ▲enacting the Regional Commercial District Act ▲expanding the issuance of Onnuri gift certificates ▲promoting consumption through events such as the Together Sale and Christmas Market to expand online and offline sales channels for small business owners.

Minister Kwon stated, "I will personally ensure that there are no additional measures to minimize the damage to small business owners," adding, "The recovery of small business owners' management will be the MSS's greatest goal."

The MSS also announced plans to continue the second venture boom and nurture innovative ventures and startups as key players in a leading economy.

While fostering ventures and startups leading the digital, non-face-to-face, and green economy, a comprehensive plan to revitalize manufacturing startups will be prepared in the first half of this year.

The Smart Korea Fund will raise an additional 1 trillion won this year and promote the introduction of Silicon Valley-style finance (investment conditional loans) to continue the venture investment boom. To activate exports, efforts will be made to ▲enhance Brand K awareness ▲promote non-face-to-face and online exports ▲establish new K-Startup Centers.

Minister Kwon said, "We will actively support traditional SMEs to secure new competitiveness through innovation projects such as smart manufacturing innovation accelerating the innovation of smokestack manufacturing plants, eco-friendly process innovation, and new business transformation innovation." The plan is to build 1,000 5G+AI smart factories and 100 K-Smart Lighthouse Factories by 2025.

By next year, 100 regional innovation leading companies will be selected and intensively nurtured, and next month, a strategy for fostering and developing local value creators (local creators) will be prepared.

Efforts will also be made to expand a win-win economy through cooperation between companies. To vitalize the profit-sharing system, legal grounds will be established to support incentives for companies voluntarily sharing profits, and a 1 trillion won win-win cooperation fund (2021?2025) will be promoted. Improvement plans for livelihood-type suitable industries and business adjustment systems will also be prepared.

The MSS will establish a five-platform system between large corporations and startups by the first half of this year and prepare a protocol economy development strategy to support startup and commercialization.

Finally, Minister Kwon stated, "We will expand projects applying the national recommendation system where the general public recommends support targets, and we will definitely create a system to strengthen field communication by MSS employees."

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