Sojinkong Increases This Year's Business Budget by 4% Compared to Last Year... New Support for Delivery and Courier Fees Introduced

New Year's Press Briefing Held on the 20th
This Year's Budget Increased to 484.5 Billion KRW

The Small Enterprise and Market Service (SEMAS) has selected four key focus tasks to foster small business owners and will begin providing support. They plan to expand the scale and scope of support, including newly introducing delivery and courier fee assistance and increasing matching funds from private investment and government capital.

On the morning of the 20th, Chairman Park Seong-hyo is answering questions at the New Year's press conference held at the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business in Seoul. Provided by Sojinkong

On the 20th, SEMAS held a New Year's press briefing at the Korea Federation of SMEs in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, announcing last year's achievements and this year's key initiatives.

Last year, SEMAS established the integrated policy support platform 'Small Business 24,' simplifying approximately 61 million documents, swiftly executing three types of financial support including repayment extensions, and expanding electricity bill subsidies, among various support systems. They also newly discovered and designated 195 alley shopping districts and lowered export entry barriers by establishing overseas offline stores for promising small business owners. To enhance staff expertise, an in-house certification class was created within the corporation, with 126 employees obtaining professional certifications.

This year, the corporation will invest a budget of 5.0845 trillion KRW, an increase of 194.8 billion KRW (4%) from last year, to implement 12 detailed projects and 34 sub-projects. To this end, four major core tasks have been selected: ▲ fostering continuously growing small business owners ▲ creating convenient commercial districts and markets centered on customers ▲ alleviating financial burdens on small business owners ▲ strengthening customized policy service provision.

First, to foster continuously growing small business owners, SEMAS will operate a new business start-up academy with an investment of 19.3 billion KRW. The corporation plans to expand the discovery of prospective small business owners and concretize start-up items by providing up to 40 million KRW in commercialization funds based on start-up activity achievements, along with education, practice, and mentoring to improve start-up success rates. Additionally, they will select small business owners with innovative lifestyle ideas through the 'Strong Small Business Owner Development' program and operate a private investment and government fund matching program for promising small business owners under 'Private Investment and Financing Support.'

Furthermore, new support for delivery and courier fees for micro small business owners, expansion of small business owners' employment insurance enrollment, increased store demolition subsidies (from 2.5 million KRW to a maximum of 4 million KRW), and expansion of support targets (from 22,000 cases to 30,000 cases) are planned to contribute to the recovery and management safety net of small business owners.

On the morning of the 20th, Chairman Park Seong-hyo is answering questions at the New Year's press conference held at the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business in Seoul. Provided by Sojinkong

Second, to create convenient commercial districts and markets centered on customers, support will be provided to small business owners specialized in creating regional value, focusing on 'Alley-type Shopping District Development' and the 'Local Creator' (7.2 billion KRW, 230 companies) and 'Local Brand' (1.9 billion KRW, 8 teams) projects. Efforts will also be made to revitalize commercial districts and markets through the 'Centennial Small Business Owner' project (427 million KRW, about 100 entities).

In addition, digital-based management efficiency will be emphasized through online market entry (16 billion KRW, about 46,000 entities), digital traditional market support (6.5 billion KRW, 75 locations), and smart technology dissemination (32.5 billion KRW, 11,000 companies). The Onnuri gift certificate will also be issued at the largest scale of 5.5 trillion KRW to promote consumption in local traditional markets.

Third, to alleviate financial burdens on small business owners, based on 3.77 trillion KRW of small business owner loan support, new mutual growth funds will be provided, repayment extension criteria will be relaxed, refinancing targets will be expanded (including refinancing of high-interest guaranteed loans), and a two-year grace period repayment method will be introduced.

Lastly, to strengthen customized policy services, the big data platform 'Small Business 365' will be established to provide data-driven customized services. Additionally, to address the four major livelihood damages (unreasonable disposable item fines, illegal advertising agency issues, etc.), an on-site difficulty reception center (offline) for small business owners will be operated at 77 regional centers. Online reception through Small Business 24 is also available.

Park Seong-hyo, Director of SEMAS, stated, "Last year, we made multifaceted efforts to reform the policy support system and expand the foundation for the growth of small business owners and the corporation. This year, we will make it a year of doubling capabilities and do our utmost by mobilizing all the capabilities of SEMAS employees for the leap of small business owners and traditional markets."

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