SEOUL, March 25 (Yonhap) - The government plans to significantly increase its support to small and medium businesses (SMBs), in an effort to create jobs and strengthen the overall competitiveness of the nation, said this Monday, the Ministry of Commerce.
The move comes as a result of that small businesses now account for nearly 98 percent of total employment, but there were only about 110 small but strong individual whose exports exceeded 100 million a year in 2011, according to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.
The ministry said that, through their support, "small and medium enterprises will become global companies, assuming a key role in economic growth and the country's exports, and directly benefiting the people and workers."
To this end, the ministry plans to allocate half of all your fund research and development (R & D) for SMEs in 2017 and triple the amount of what he called the R & D fund "unconditional" for small businesses, from the current 54,000 billion won (48.5 million dollars) to 170,000 billion won (152 million dollars) in 2017, said in a policy report to President Park Geun-hye.
This will help increase the number of so-called small but strong at around 300, the ministry added.
However, the ministry said government support alone does not guarantee the growth of small businesses in the country, considering that also needed better and fairer relations between large conglomerates and smaller companies.
The ministry also said it will work to maximize the benefits for local businesses arising from free trade agreements the country, and who recently took charge of trade negotiations that were previously handled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
South Korea is already applying eight free trade agreements (FTAs) with 45 countries, including the United States and the European Union. The country is also preparing for or participating in negotiations for another 15 FTAs involving 37 countries.
