Ministry of SMEs and Startups Supports Relief for Export Logistics Cost Burden of SMEs

Announcement of the Online Export Joint Logistics Project

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 8th that it is recruiting participating companies for the '2025 Online Export Joint Logistics Project.' The online export joint logistics project is designed to alleviate the logistics cost burden for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are currently exporting or planning to export through e-commerce by supporting logistics costs, fulfillment service fees, and more.

Firstly, SMEs with relatively low export volumes faced difficulties as it was challenging to negotiate unit prices with logistics companies for individual courier shipments, resulting in a heavy logistics cost burden. In response, the logistics cost discount program supports the use of overseas delivery services at logistics rates averaging more than 60% cheaper than the standard EMS (Korea Post International Express) rates by aggregating multiple SMEs.

The fulfillment support program opens the logistics warehouses of global distributors to participating SMEs during the e-commerce process and supports up to 25 million KRW per company, covering about 70% of various costs such as fees for local fulfillment services specialized for global online shopping platforms, export customs clearance, and declaration agency fees.

These two projects were developed to support SMEs in overcoming difficulties related to logistics costs and the complex logistics process when entering overseas markets. Due to high demand in the field, approximately 1,300 companies are planned to be supported this year.

Last year, Cony Byerin participated in this project and reduced logistics costs by about 76% compared to the annual EMS standard rates. Through fulfillment support, they received 22.6 million KRW for overseas fulfillment hub usage fees, easing their online logistics cost burden. As a result, Cony Byerin was able to pursue a more aggressive export market entry, with export revenue increasing approximately 3.6 times year-on-year to 12.75 million USD last year.

Last year, about 3.96 million export shipments were supported through the online joint logistics support project, allowing usage at rates discounted by an average of 83.4% compared to the EMS standard rates. This year, reflecting the export volume demand of SMEs, export logistics will be focused mainly on the United States, China, and Japan, and fulfillment support funds will be expanded and operated in stages according to company sales size, categorized as beginner, promising, growing, and strong SMEs.

Lee Soon-bae, Director of Global Growth Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, stated, “Due to recent U.S. tariff impositions and other measures, exporting SMEs are facing significant burdens, especially regarding logistics costs. Through this project, we will actively support SMEs to overcome these difficult times.”

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