Seoul City’s 'Support by Life Cycle'... Small Business 1-Year Survival Rate Nears 94%

Announcement of Small Business Survival Rate Survey After Startup Support
Upward Trend Over 5 Years... Higher Survival Rate for Small Businesses in 3-5 Year Range
Systematic Support by Life Cycle Plays Major Role in Strengthening Survival Rate

The one-year survival rate of small business owners supported by the Seoul Metropolitan Government was found to be as high as 94%. This is about 30 percentage points higher than the national average for small business owners, indicating that most businesses are operating stably. This result is analyzed as reflecting the effectiveness of Seoul's 'small business owner lifecycle' support measures.

The Seoul Credit Guarantee Foundation announced on the 22nd that, according to a survey on the survival rate of companies supported by Seoul over the past five years, the one-year survival rate of Seoul small business owners who received city support was 93.7%. This is 29.6 percentage points higher than the national average one-year survival rate of 64.1% for small business owners.

[Photo by Seoul City]

In particular, the national average one-year survival rate for small business owners is 64.1%, meaning that one out of three businesses closes within the first year, and after the fourth year, about two out of three businesses are analyzed to have closed. The fourth-year survival rate is 62.0%, and the fifth-year survival rate is 54.7%, which are 23.2 percentage points and 20.4 percentage points higher, respectively, than the national averages (38.8% at year four, 34.3% at year five). On the other hand, small business owners supported by Seoul showed a one-year survival rate of 93.7%, with most small business owners surviving.

The foundation attributed the higher survival rate of supported small business owners to systematic support based on the small business owner lifecycle. Currently, Seoul is developing and implementing segmented support policies by lifecycle stages (startup-growth-rechallenge) to strengthen the capabilities and competitiveness of small business owners. During the startup phase, education and startup consulting help reduce trial and error; during the growth phase, one-on-one management clinics are operated to resolve management difficulties and strengthen competitiveness. In the rechallenge phase, customized education and consulting are provided to small business owners who wish to close their business and restart, helping them to recover.

Last year, amid prolonged economic downturn, the program was reorganized to focus on preventing insolvency among self-employed individuals by early identification of at-risk small business owners and supporting safe business closures to prevent collapse due to economic and environmental changes.

The foundation also evaluated that the city's '4-No (無) Safe Finance Support Special Guarantee' (no interest, no guarantee fee, no collateral, no paper documents), launched in 2021 to alleviate management difficulties faced by small business owners pushed to the brink by COVID-19, played a significant role in strengthening survival rates. Joo Cheol-soo, Chairman of the Seoul Credit Guarantee Foundation, said, "Seoul City and the foundation will continue to strengthen the comprehensive lifecycle support system that links financial support and management support, doing our best to help small business owners, the backbone of Seoul's economy, build self-sustainability and maintain their businesses for a long time."

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