Chairman Kim Jong-ho of Kibo "Supporting SMEs to Maintain Growth Momentum Amid Difficult Economic Conditions"

Expansion of Guarantee Supply for SME Innovation Growth
Support for Scale-up of Future New Industries

Kim Jong-ho, Chairman of the Korea Technology Finance Corporation (Kibo), recently stated that despite the challenging domestic and international economic environment characterized by soaring oil prices, high inflation, high interest rates, and high exchange rates, Kibo will faithfully support the growth momentum of domestic small and medium-sized venture enterprises.

On the 13th, Kibo held a press briefing at a Chinese restaurant located in Yeouido, Seoul, under the theme "Kibo's Efforts and Achievements to Support Innovation and Growth of Small and Medium-sized Venture Enterprises." The briefing was organized to review Kibo's role in supporting the new government's economic policies, including liquidity support measures to help small and medium-sized venture enterprises overcome crises and plans to foster future new industries to create new growth engines for the Korean economy, as well as to present future business directions.

On the 13th, at a press briefing held under the theme "Kibo's Efforts and Achievements to Support the Innovation and Growth of Small and Medium Venture Businesses," Director Kim Jong-ho is speaking.

Since his inauguration, Chairman Kim has visited industrial sites nationwide more than 20 times. He explained that these visits were part of continuous efforts to resolve the liquidity issues faced by companies due to changes in domestic and international economic conditions after COVID-19, support policies for future new industries, and deregulation by industry to address the difficulties of small and medium-sized enterprises. Chairman Kim said, "We have made significant efforts to help small and medium-sized venture enterprises overcome crises during difficult times," adding, "We tried to reflect the difficulties of regions and industries as much as possible in Kibo's policies by listening to their concerns."

On this day, Kibo presented support policies and achievements in five areas: ▲ expanding guarantee supply to overcome complex crises and achieve a new leap forward ▲ supporting scale-up in future new industry sectors ▲ complementing the venture investment market and supporting innovative finance ▲ promoting new win-win growth ▲ and establishing a future-oriented management foundation.

First, to overcome the complex crisis early and prevent the contraction of growth potential, Kibo expanded new guarantee supply to KRW 6.4 trillion this year, an increase of KRW 2.2 trillion compared to the previous year. The guarantee period was extended up to three years until September 2025, and the guarantee fee was further reduced by 0.2 percentage points to alleviate the financial burden on small and medium-sized venture enterprises. To enable companies to raise funds through direct financing such as corporate bonds in addition to guarantees, Kibo newly supplied KRW 204.7 billion in securitization company guarantees twice this year, in the first and second halves. In addition, in consultation with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Kibo newly established special guarantees to strengthen the competitiveness of innovative ventures, startups, and export SMEs, supplying an additional KRW 550 billion this year to enhance support.

Kibo is also leading efforts to discover and nurture startups to drive economic re-leap. Preferential guarantees have been prepared for ultra-gap future strategic industries such as advanced manufacturing, energy, digital communications, automation, and bio, expanding the support scale to KRW 2.4 trillion this year. Among these companies, a scale-up guarantee program was newly established to support up to KRW 10 billion for companies with high average sales growth rates. The special guarantee for prospective unicorns has shown results: among the selected companies, seven have become unicorns, nine have gone public (IPO), and four have undergone mergers and acquisitions (M&A). Chairman Kim explained, "We actively discovered and supported promising companies capable of growing into global unicorns."

In 2024, Kibo plans to maintain support policies for future new industry sectors to create new growth engines, considering the funding situation of small and medium-sized venture enterprises, and strengthen risk management against the possibility of increased insolvency of small businesses through focused post-management by sector. Along with this, Kibo announced that it will also take the lead in supporting the crisis recovery of regional small businesses, such as by newly establishing special guarantees for companies affected by the recent Daewoo Winia Group case. Chairman Kim stated, "Kibo will do its best as a comprehensive technology finance support institution to restore vitality to our economy and support innovative growth, actively carry out the new government's national agenda, and take the lead in realizing a complete venture ecosystem and expanding win-win growth between large and small-medium enterprises."

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