Korea Federation of SMEs Begins Accepting Applications for Designation of 'Competitive Products Among Small Business Owners'

by Lee Seungjin

Published 03 Mar.2024 12:00(KST)

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business (Kbiz) will accept applications for the designation of ‘Competitive Products Among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)’ from April 4 to April 30.

‘Competitive Products Among SMEs’ are designated by the Minister of SMEs and Startups, referring to products purchased by public institutions that have no technological gap and standardized specifications, allowing competition among domestically manufactured SMEs to maintain the manufacturing base of small and medium enterprises.

Korea Federation of SMEs Begins Accepting Applications for Designation of 'Competitive Products Among Small Business Owners'

As of 2024, based on the Public Procurement Service’s product classification numbers, out of 15,000 items purchased by public institutions, 631 items are designated as ‘Competitive Products Among SMEs,’ with about 50,000 SMEs currently participating.

To be designated as a ‘Competitive Product Among SMEs,’ related SME organizations or more than 10 SMEs must apply together. The products finally designated through this application will maintain their status for three years to ensure stable system operation.

In particular, this designation process has relaxed the public institution purchase amount criteria through special recommendation conditions to allow new industry products to be designated as ‘Competitive Products Among SMEs’ to promote technological development, and expanded the innovative enterprise organizations eligible to recommend products.

Yang Chan-hoe, Head of the Innovation Growth Division at Kbiz, stated, “As seen in the private market, if the domestic SME manufacturing base collapses, even the public market will inevitably be filled with large corporations’ OEM products and low-priced foreign products. Since ‘Competitive Products Among SMEs’ is the only system that supports not only SME market access but also sustains national industrial competitiveness and the manufacturing base, active cooperation and support from the government and related institutions are necessary.”