7 out of 10 Small Business Owners Have a Negative Outlook on This Year's Business Prospects

KFSB Announces Results of New Year Management Survey
Small Business Owners Call for Additional Government Budget to Support Small Businesses

Seven out of ten small business owners predicted poor business performance this year. There are also calls for the government to expand financial support for small business owners.

On the 22nd, the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (KFSB) announced the "2025 Small Business New Year Management Survey." This survey was conducted to understand last year’s business performance, outlook, and necessary policies for small business owners as the new year begins. The survey was conducted online over five days from the 15th to the 19th of this month, with a total of 1,024 general small business owners nationwide participating, including those engaged in food and lodging, wholesale and retail, and personal services.

Traditional Market. Yonhap News

Seven out of ten small business owners viewed last year’s business performance pessimistically. A total of 69.2% of respondents expressed a negative view of last year’s business results. Specifically, 38.6% responded "very poor," and 30.6% responded "somewhat poor."

The main reason for poor business performance was "shrinking consumer sentiment due to economic downturn (81.9%)." This was followed by ▲increased debt and financial cost burden due to interest rate hikes (39.3%) ▲price increases in raw materials and supplies caused by high inflation (37.9%).

The outlook for this year’s business performance was also negative, with 36.8% expecting it to "somewhat worsen" and 29.2% expecting it to "worsen significantly," meaning 66.0% of respondents viewed the future pessimistically. Expectations for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday sales were also low. With 34.7% responding "somewhat negative" and 34.6% "very negative," 69.3% of respondents held a pessimistic view.

In this situation, small business owners identified the expansion of government financial support as the most necessary policy. Among key policies for small business owners, 92.3% of respondents said there is a need for an additional budget to support small business owners. Other policies ranked as follows: ▲expansion of credit card income deduction rates and limits (86.2%) ▲campaigns to boost small business economy such as the Good Prepayment Movement (70.1%) ▲expansion of local love gift certificates issuance (68.9%) ▲expansion of Onnuri gift certificate usage locations (67.4%) ▲government discount events for small business owners and expansion of local festivals (65.7%).

Ryu Pil-seon, a specialist at the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, said, “Many small business owners have a negative outlook on economic recovery this year,” adding, “It is necessary to mobilize all available policy measures to stimulate the domestic economy.”

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