SME Ombudsman Supports Growth of Village and Self-Sufficiency Enterprises

Promotion of Inclusion in Priority Purchase Targets for Public Institutions

Jubong Park, Small and Medium Business Ombudsman (Vice Minister level).
[Photo by Small and Medium Business Ombudsman]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jong-hwa] A proposal has been made to include village enterprises, self-sufficiency enterprises, and preliminary social enterprises?which are currently classified as social economy enterprises but excluded from the public institution priority purchase system?among the targets for priority purchase by public institutions.

Village enterprises refer to community-level businesses established and operated by residents to realize the interests of the local community, while self-sufficiency enterprises are businesses established by basic livelihood security recipients or near-poverty individuals for the purpose of self-support.

The Small and Medium Business Ombudsman announced on the 27th that it held an "S.O.S. Talk" (Small and Medium Enterprise Meeting) with the Chungnam Regional Headquarters of the Small and Medium Business Corporation to listen to companies' requests for regulatory improvements. S.O.S. Talk is a joint meeting held since 2015 by the Small and Medium Business Ombudsman and the Small and Medium Business Corporation to resolve regulatory difficulties faced by regional small and medium enterprises, with 14 to 16 sessions held annually.

At the meeting, Company A stated, "Currently, various types of social economy enterprises are included in the priority purchase rate indicators for revitalizing the social economy in local government evaluations. However, in the evaluation of social value implementation by public institutions, only the purchase performance of social enterprises and social cooperatives is assessed as priority purchase targets." They added, "Unlike local government evaluations, village enterprises and self-sufficiency enterprises are excluded from the priority purchase targets in the government's public institution evaluations."

They further requested, "Please evaluate village enterprises, self-sufficiency enterprises, and preliminary social enterprises on an equal footing with social enterprises and social cooperatives, and support growth opportunities for small-scale social economy enterprises that are relatively small and require stable sales channels."

In response, Ombudsman Park Ju-bong (Vice Minister level) replied, "We will actively consult with the relevant administrative agencies to ensure that various types of social economy enterprises, such as village enterprises and self-sufficiency enterprises, which have been excluded from the public institution priority purchase system, can secure stable sales channels."

Since the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, which oversees village enterprise policies, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which oversees self-sufficiency enterprise policies, have also shown responses emphasizing the need for equitable system operation, such as including the purchase performance of related enterprises in the government's public institution management evaluation, the Ombudsman expects active institutional improvements.

Additionally, Company B pointed out, "Under the Chemical Products Safety Act, companies intending to manufacture safety-confirmed household chemical products must receive confirmation of compliance with safety standards from testing and inspection agencies and report the confirmed details to the Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute. However, since the current confirmation agency and reporting agency operate separately, companies face the inconvenience of submitting documents to two agencies separately, and the process from confirmation to reporting takes a long time, so simplification of work procedures is necessary."

The "confirmation of compliance for safety-confirmed household chemical products" is one of the systems established in response to the increased need for safety management of chemical products following the humidifier disinfectant incident, which caused many casualties in the past.

The Korea Environmental Industry & Technology Institute, responsible for the reporting task, empathizes with the difficulties companies face in submitting information provided to testing and inspection agencies again to the reporting agency, and plans to find ways to link information with each testing and inspection agency step-by-step through opinion gathering and status surveys of related agencies this year.

Other small and medium enterprises participating in the meeting also conveyed regulatory and difficulty issues such as ▲relaxation of employment activity period restrictions for foreign workers ▲simplification of employment procedures and easing of requirements for foreign workers ▲reorganization of certification procedures for low-carbon products.

Ombudsman Park said, "We will listen carefully to the voices from the field in the Chungnam region and do our best to help strengthen the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises through regulatory improvements."

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