Ministry of SMEs selects 292 companies for SME Technology Innovation Development Project… Up to 2 billion KRW support

A Total Budget of 427.7 Billion KRW Invested This Year... Scale-up Support

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 17th that it has newly selected 292 promising small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as support targets for the 'SME Technology Innovation Development Project.'

The SME Technology Innovation Development Project is the Ministry's representative technology development (R&D) project supporting the scale-up of SMEs, with a total budget of 427.7 billion KRW invested this year.

To provide R&D funding support to SMEs struggling due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, an early announcement was made, and evaluation methods and procedures were improved to advance the selection timing by about two months compared to the previous year. Additionally, an ontact evaluation method was introduced to promote swift and efficient evaluations.

The 292 newly selected companies correspond to the detailed tasks within this project: 'Market-Responsive,' 'Strong SMEs 100,' and 'Materials, Parts, and Equipment (SoBuJang) General' tasks, receiving a total support of 54.6 billion KRW.

The Market-Responsive task supports SMEs possessing technologies in promising items such as the 4th Industrial Revolution with up to 500 million KRW for up to two years. The Strong SMEs 100 and SoBuJang General tasks support SMEs with technological competitiveness in the materials, parts, and equipment sectors with up to 2 billion KRW for four years and 500 million KRW for two years, respectively.

While the Technology Innovation Development Project fundamentally supports companies with sales of 2 billion KRW or more, to provide robust support, a 'Re-Leap Company' track was created within the Market-Responsive and SoBuJang General sub-projects to support companies with less than 2 billion KRW in sales.

Analysis of selected companies by technology type showed that companies selected under the general company track with sales of 2 billion KRW or more had the highest proportion (22.7%) in industrial accident prevention and eco-friendly technology fields responding to social issues such as ESG management and the Serious Accident Punishment Act.

Companies selected under the Re-Leap Company track with sales below 2 billion KRW showed the highest selection rate (50%) in new business fields based on digital technologies with excellent technological scalability.

In the Strong SMEs 100 task, selections were evenly made across seven of the nine SoBuJang sectors, excluding display and non-face-to-face digital sectors.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to additionally select 476 companies in the first half and 195 companies in the second half of the year, aiming to select and support a total of 963 promising SMEs this year.

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