Chairman Kim Ki-moon: "If Government and Companies Work as One Team, Republic of Korea Will Make a New Leap"

Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, 2024 New Year's Address Announcement

Kim Ki-moon, Chairman of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (Kbiz), stated in his "2024 New Year's Address" on the 28th, "Thanks to the government taking the lead in economic policy and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) strengthening their self-help efforts to improve competitiveness, expectations are rising that the stagnant economy will improve."

Chairman Kim evaluated that this year, the SME sector achieved various policy outcomes to enhance SME competitiveness, including ▲expanding the installment payment period for gift tax to 15 years to establish a planned succession foundation ▲implementation of the delivery payment linkage system ▲introduction of the largest-ever foreign workforce (E-9) quota.

Regarding the roles and tasks for next year, Chairman Kim said, "The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business will also lay the groundwork so that the SME sector can boldly innovate and strive to make Korea a leading nation. If the government and businesses work as one team throughout 2024, I expect that Korea can create a turning point for a new leap forward."

Kim Ki-moon, President of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business

Chairman Kim said the starting point is "the transformation of SMEs, the foundation of the Korean economy." To achieve this, he emphasized the need for expanding export territories by leveraging the Korean Wave (Hallyu) boom, cooperation from large corporations to strengthen the industrial ecosystem's competitiveness, and institutional support from the government.

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business specifically proposed ▲alleviating SME labor shortages through labor reforms such as flexibilization of the 52-hour workweek system and improvement of the Serious Accident Punishment Act ▲discovering and improving killer regulations that can enhance innovation capabilities ▲preparing measures to improve SME productivity ▲establishing a third-party restructuring institution to improve the overall health of SMEs. Chairman Kim stated, "We will devote all our capabilities to ensure these are included in the policy pledges of major political parties in the 22nd National Assembly election scheduled for April."

Chairman Kim added, "As SMEs chose the four-character idiom 'Unoe Changcheon (雲外蒼天)' meaning 'clear sky beyond the clouds' as this year's motto, although the economic situation is challenging, if we do not lose hope and overcome difficulties, a better future will unfold before us."

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