Gimhae City to Foster Excellent SMEs as 'Kangso Companies'

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Sang-hyun] The Gimhae Life Science Industry Promotion Agency announced on the 15th that it is recruiting participating companies for the ‘2021 Gimhae-type Small Giant Companies’ to focus on discovering and nurturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with technological competitiveness that will lead the region's future industries.

The Small Giant Company Development Project is a program designed to systematically support excellent companies with growth potential and job creation capabilities to nurture them into small giant companies. Up to last year, 40 companies were designated, and the plan is to select and nurture 100 companies over five years until 2023.

Selected companies will receive various supports including a dedicated fund of 50 million KRW, preferential loan interest rates from NongHyup Bank and Gyeongnam Bank, guarantee support and additional fee reductions from the Korea Technology Finance Corporation, extra points for designation as promising export SMEs, and preferential interest rates on new policy fund loans and development technology commercialization funds from the Small and Medium Business Corporation.

Eligibility requires that the corporation’s headquarters or main business site (factory) be located in Gimhae, and that the average sales over the past three years be between 2 billion KRW and less than 40 billion KRW (for knowledge-based service industries, 500 million KRW or more).

Companies wishing to participate can submit their application forms by April 12th by referring to the project announcements on the Gimhae Life Science Industry Promotion Agency and Gimhae City websites.

After receiving applications, through document evaluation, on-site evaluation, and final evaluation, a total of 20 companies will be designated as Gimhae-type Small Giant Companies in June.

Mayor Heo Seong-gon stated, “We will lead promising small giant companies with growth potential to grow into global companies that lead the world market,” and added, “We expect many solid and technologically capable local companies to apply for this recruitment.”

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