SME Aid
Korea Western Power (KOWEPO) is a public enterprise in South Korea that works closely with SMEs. It firmly believes in communicating and sharing values with the SMEs. To earn trust and help them grow, KOWEPO has supported SMEs in R&D, technology development, sales channel development, management innovation, funding, and even training management skills. KOWEPO made a separate section in its website to provide information on the enactment and changes of policies. In the website, SMEs that have a membership can even keep track of which projects they applied for and which technology they sold. They can even check which companies with which they have networked.
From May 13 to June 3, KOWEPO held a “Purchase Conference for Superb SME Products,” starting from the Pyeongtaek headquarters, to support market expansion of it cooperating SMEs. In this conference, KOWEPO provided sales and promotion opportunities to SMEs that possess marketable technology, but not enough information and sales channels to sell their products or a venue in which purchasing representatives from different SMEs can build networks with each other. A total of 191 SMEs participated, and six billion won (US$589.9 million) worth of purchase agreements was made. With this conference, KOWEPO abided by the Government 3.0 Policy: exchange of information through an open platform of shared growth and actively seeking buyers to help out SMEs. Last year, KOWEPO helped SMEs make 190 billion won (US$186.8 million) worth of purchase agreements, and this year, it is expecting to make over 200 billion won (US$196.6 million).
Last November, KOWEPO opened a special section for Korean SMEs in Power-Gen International 2013 (PGI 2013) at Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, U.S. This 25-year-old convention is the largest exhibition of electricity-generating devices in the world in which 1,400 companies and 21,000 specialists from 75 countries participated. Last year, six power companies and the Korea Association of Machinery Industry (KOAMI) cooperated and managed 24 booths there. A total of 47 people from 26 SMEs promoted their technology and products.
This is an international export promotion event in which the most cooperating SMEs participated, and opened a special section exclusively to promote Korean SMEs grabbed the attention from major media. A total of 334 cases of consultation worth US$567.3 million (5.77 billion won) occurred, with an on-site sale of oil rectifiers from Samyoung Fil-Tech.
KOWEPO provides support for exporting SME products and technology about 15 to 20 times a year. It launched WP Small Giants 30, an export association for cooperating SMEs, to promote their products to Myanmar and Vietnam.