Jungjingong, Recruiting Participants for Regulatory Free Zone Challenge

Up to 500 Million KRW Business Commercialization Funding Support

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Kwon Chil-seung), the Small and Medium Business Corporation (Chairman Kim Hak-do, hereinafter referred to as SBC), and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (President Seok Young-cheol) announced on the 30th that they will hold the Regulatory Free Zone Challenge to revitalize the startup boom centered on regulatory free zones.

The Regulatory Free Zone is a Korean-style regulatory sandbox system that relaxes regulations related to new businesses in regional units as a package to promote regional innovation growth and national balanced development. A total of 24 zones in 14 local governments nationwide have been designated in four fields: future transportation (8), energy and chemicals (7), biohealth (5), and ICT (4).

The Regulatory Free Zone Challenge, which is recruiting participants until the 7th of next month, is a program designed to support the activation of startups within the regional zones and to establish a foundation for the innovative growth of promising startups, thereby encouraging the zone projects to lead to the spread of the second venture boom. The participants are targeted at zone operators and startups within 7 years of establishment (including prospective entrepreneurs) who possess ideas and technologies based on zone projects, and six companies will be selected in total, divided into the Startup League and the Zone Operator League.

First, through regional preliminaries, one zone operator and one startup company will be selected from each of the 14 local governments to provide commercialization mentoring and, if desired, grant zone operator qualifications. Among the companies that pass the regional preliminaries, six companies that win in the Regulatory Free Zone Challenge finals will be awarded commendations from the Minister of SMEs and Startups, and SBC plans to support the commercialization of new technologies with future growth potential by providing up to 500 million KRW in growth-sharing funds.

Jung Jin-woo, Head of Corporate Support at SBC, said, "We will actively utilize SBC’s capabilities such as policy funds and the Youth Startup Academy to help unicorn companies emerge from the Regulatory Free Zones," adding, "As the dedicated agency for the Regulatory Free Zones, SBC will do its best to achieve visible results from the zone system."

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