<기사제목>SME Central Association and Small Business Cooperative Launch Full-Scale 'Industry Common Technology R&D'

27 Combinations, 24 Billion KRW R&D Funding Over 2 Years

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwak Minjae] The Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 19th that 27 cooperatives have been finally selected for the government-implemented ‘Performance-Sharing Common Technology R&D Support Project,’ and will officially commence research and development activities with a national budget of 24 billion KRW over two years.

The support project is part of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ ‘3rd Plan for Revitalizing SME Cooperatives (2022?2024)’ and is the first project established to create a self-reliant foundation for cooperatives and promote new joint businesses. It is significant as the first government R&D support project led by cooperatives suitable for discovering industry common demand technologies centered on the field and spreading outcomes.

The selected cooperatives will receive a total of 24 billion KRW in R&D funding over two years. After two years, up to 150 million KRW per cooperative will be additionally supported to share and disseminate the developed common technologies. Approximately 40 billion KRW (30 billion KRW national funds, 10 billion KRW private funds) will be invested over three years, making it the largest single project directly supporting SME cooperatives.

Currently progressing in stages, this project selected 40 cooperatives in April as recipients of the task planning (Phase 1) support, providing 20 million KRW per cooperative to complete task planning. Among the 40 cooperatives that completed this phase, 27 were finally selected as recipients of the research and development (Phase 2) support this time.

The background for promoting this project lies in the fact that since April last year, SME cooperatives have been recognized as SMEs and thus able to participate in government support policies. In particular, with 17 metropolitan local governments and 67 local governments enacting cooperative support ordinances and establishing revitalization plans, a more institutional foundation for promoting joint businesses has been established than before.

Based on this institutional foundation, cooperative support projects are being implemented one after another by local governments. To strengthen the R&D capabilities of cooperatives, Busan City supported 300 million KRW and Gyeonggi Province 100 million KRW this year. Seoul City supports labor costs for newly hired employees of cooperatives within the city, and the total scale of cooperative support by local governments is expected to gradually expand from 2.3 billion KRW this year.

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