More than 16 Trillion Won to Be Spent on Supporting SMEs in Korea This Year

The Small & Medium Business Administration (SMBA) of South Korea announced on May 22 that a total of 16.5806 trillion won is scheduled to be spent in 2017 on projects for supporting the business of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in South Korea. It added that the central government accounts for 86.2% of the budget and local governments are responsible for 78.6% of the projects in number.

According to the SMBA’s recent survey, the budget for this year increased approximately 100 billion won from a year ago and about 8.5 trillion won out of the total budget has been earmarked as a portion for loans.

The projects include 146 in the field of financing, 295 in R&D and 84 related to manpower. 9.4 trillion won, 2.9 trillion won and 1.5 trillion won have been earmarked for the respective purposes.

The budgets for startup support, job creation and the maintenance of employment increased from a year earlier whereas that for employee training projects declined. When it comes to marketing support, the budget for international marketing and marketing infrastructure establishment increased while that for domestic marketing fell.