Medium Businesses
On August 29, President Park Geun-hye said, “Mid-sized businesses are like the spine of our economy,” and added, “Just as humans need strong spines to be healthy, our national economy needs strong mid-size businesses to be healthy.”
Park had a luncheon in the Blue House with Kang Ho-kap, CEO of the Association of High Potential Enterprises of Korea and other board members. She also said, “Currently, Korea has about 14K mid-sized businesses in charge of 10.9% of exports and 5.7% of employment, playing crucial roles in the activation of the economy and employment rate improvements. Yet they have been left behind on several policies for such a long time.”
Then she mentioned, “Once a small size business grows into a mid-sized business, about 77 governmental supports are discontinued, and about 20 new regulations are applied,” and added, “So some companies are even suffering “Peter Pan Syndrome,” which means that they don’t want to grow into a mid-size company. The government is very aware of this problem.”
She continued, “We are trying to come up with a way to build a stepping stone so that small businesses can grow into mid-size and even large enterprises,” and added, “The government will make sure that the necessary support for research and development and tax reductions continue after growing into a mid-size company to get rid of any potential burdens.”
She specifically mentioned building a new separate support program to cultivate mid-size businesses into global enterprises. President Park said, “I will make a distinguished support system to allow our mid-sized businesses to pursue growth into global enterprises, instead of staying the same size.” She said, “Mid-sized businesses tend to have a more flexible organization and open-minded business culture compared to large enterprises, and show a better potential in R&D, networking, and overseas expansion expertise compared to venture enterprises,” and recommended, “Mid-sized business are strongly encouraged to maximize these advantages and directly relate to the activation of the economy.”