Ministry of SMEs and Startups Holds Joint Meeting with Technopark and Creative Economy Innovation Center

Minister Lee Young of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (center front row) attended the "Technopark and Creative Economy Innovation Center Joint Meeting" held on the 8th at Sejong Technopark in Sejong City, and took a commemorative photo with Sejong Mayor Choi Min-ho (to Minister Lee Young's left), the Technopark director, the Creative Economy Innovation Center director, and other attendees.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 10th that it held a joint meeting chaired by Minister Lee Young of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups at the 6th floor auditorium of Sejong Technopark with the directors of Technopark and the Creative Economy Innovation Centers to enhance the effectiveness and public perception of regional policies.

This meeting was organized to seek a major policy shift to revitalize local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) struggling amid the COVID-19 crisis, regional extinction, and the triple high (high inflation, high interest rates, high exchange rates) complex crisis. Most directors of the Ministry’s divisions and bureaus, along with heads of 13 regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administrations nationwide, participated to discuss ways to foster local SMEs.

The joint meeting was held in two parts. In the first part, the two institutions, Technopark and the Creative Economy Innovation Centers, shared and benchmarked best practices for SME development.

Minister Lee Young of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups stated, "Realizing a livable local era anywhere in the country is one of the six major national goals of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration," adding, "Regional policies centered on SMEs are a key core task in the national agenda." He also mentioned that fragmented and piecemeal regional projects have limitations in driving regional innovation and have low public perception, emphasizing the need to restructure the support system for regional projects.

To address these issues, if the regional Small and Medium Venture Business Administrations plan distinctive and comparative advantage projects by utilizing local governments and regional innovation networks, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to promote 'regional specialized projects' by concentrating available and effective policy tools to achieve the goals of these regional projects.

The regional specialized projects set specialized fields linked to the regional leading industries reorganized in February and combine various local policies that can effectively support these fields to create performance-oriented goals. Until now, regional innovation support institutions such as Technopark and the Creative Economy Innovation Centers have supported at the individual enterprise level, but this will shift to support at the level of regional specialized projects.

If the regional specialized projects successfully settle in the market, chemical clustering is expected, which lowers barriers between local executing agencies and strengthens collaboration systems.

At the end of the second part, Minister Lee and the attendees shared regional policies and discussed current issues during a 'Dialogue with the Minister of SMEs and Startups.' At this session, Minister Lee urged, "Technopark and the Creative Economy Innovation Centers, the two pillars of the SME growth ladder, should lead the creation of a 'livable local era' made by local SMEs as a dual powerhouse."

Meanwhile, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to concretize the contents of the announced 'regional specialized projects,' hold briefing sessions for local governments in September and October, receive specialized project proposals by region, and select projects within the year.

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