2023 Ministry of SMEs and Startups Budget Confirmed at 13.5205 Trillion Won

Realizing a Dynamic Economy Centered on Small and Venture Enterprises

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Cheol-hyun] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Lee Young, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry) announced that the 2023 budget was finalized at 13.5205 trillion KRW after approval by the National Assembly plenary session on the 23rd.

The Ministry's 2023 budget focuses on three major investment directions: ▲public-private joint venture and startup promotion ▲scale-up and innovative growth of SMEs ▲rapid recovery and new leap of small business owners and self-employed.

During the National Assembly review process, the smart factory budget was increased by 18 billion KRW to actively support smart manufacturing innovation for SMEs, and an additional 80 billion KRW was allocated to expand the guarantee-backed refinancing support for micro small business owners by 1 trillion KRW.

The "Youth Employee Tomorrow Filling Deduction Plus" project plans to expand support to 15,000 people with 19.8 billion KRW, compared to the government proposal, and the Donghaeng Sale consumer festival, which was held once a year, will be held twice a year in spring and autumn with an additional 2 billion KRW increase.

Specifically, the Ministry's 2023 budget by major sector allocates 4.5816 trillion KRW to public-private joint venture and startup promotion. Based on this, the support target for TIPS, a representative public-private cooperative startup program, will be increased to more than 700 teams, and the global corporate collaboration program supporting domestic startups' overseas expansion through cooperation between global large corporations and the government will be significantly expanded. In addition, over the next five years until 2027, 1,000 startups in 10 new industries and new technology fields will be intensively discovered and nurtured as super-gap startups, and universities with excellent startup support capabilities will be designated as startup-centered universities to revitalize university-originated startups.

A budget of 4.6784 trillion KRW will be invested in promoting SME scale-up and innovative growth policies. Financial, export, and research and development (R&D) policies focusing on innovative growth and scale-up of SMEs will drive productivity and technological competitiveness improvement. Export voucher support dedicated to logistics to resolve field difficulties caused by prolonged logistics difficulties will be expanded by more than 50% compared to this year, and a logistics center for online export SMEs will be newly established at Incheon Airport. In addition, policy efforts will focus on the field settlement of the delivery payment linkage system passed by the National Assembly plenary session to induce improvement of unfairness and spread of win-win cooperation, and efforts will be made to prevent technology theft and provide relief for SMEs.

A budget of 4.2605 trillion KRW will also be used for the complete recovery and new leap of small business owners and self-employed. The main contents are to steadily promote complete recovery from COVID-19 damage, foster entrepreneurial small business owners, and support the formation of self-sustaining local commercial districts. To enable rapid recovery of small business owners, the Hope Return Package project linking management improvement, closure, and re-challenge has been increased by 26% compared to this year, and employment insurance support for self-employed will be expanded from one-person small business owners to all small business owners. Next year, Onnuri gift certificates will be issued at a scale of 4 trillion KRW, an increase of 500 billion KRW compared to this year, and the proportion of mobile and card-type Onnuri gift certificates will be expanded to solidify the sales base of traditional markets and alley shopping districts.

Minister Lee Young said, "We are facing a very severe situation due to the triple crisis following COVID-19, and innovation ventures and SMEs will be the main actors playing a strong supporting role for rapid economic recovery by injecting innovation into our economy where difficulties are intensifying in the SME field," adding, "Since the 2023 budget was difficultly finalized in the National Assembly, we will mobilize all administrative power of the Ministry to establish business plans within the year and promote business announcements to execute the budget as quickly as possible."

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