SMEs and Startups Minister Oh Young-ju, second from left, speaks with the employees of Torder at the company’s office in Seoul, Monday. Courtesy of Ministry of SMEs and Startups

By Park Jae-hyuk

Business lobbies representing Korea’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) emphasized efforts to go global this year in an apparent attempt to keep pace with newly appointed SMEs and Startups Minister Oh Young-ju, who had only worked as a diplomat in her entire 36-year career, according to industry officials, Monday.

Korea Federation of SMEs (K-Biz) Chairman Kim Ki-mun said in his New Year’s address that its members should expand their “exporting territories” by taking advantage of the popularity of their products in the global beauty and food industries.

The federation also vowed to do its best on Korea’s broadened “economic territory” in its statement welcoming President Yoon Suk Yeol’s New Year’s speech.

Federation of Middle Market Enterprises of Korea Chairman Choi Jin-shik urged its members to dominate the foreign markets in advance by maximizing the public-private cooperation embracing diplomacy and business.

In their New Year’s messages the year before, both federations focused more on asking the government to take deregulatory measures and support private-led growth, rather than emphasizing efforts for globalization.

Their latest messages are therefore interpreted widely as amicable responses to the new SMEs minister’s promise to help Korean SMEs go global, which was made as the opposition bloc criticized her lack of direct industry experience.

“In collaboration with diplomatic offices abroad, relevant institutions and companies, the government will form a team to support the exports of SMEs,” the minister said.

On the first day of this year, she also showed her keen interest in the export of products made by a Korean SME, through her visit to the office of Torder, a Seoul-based startup that exports its table order system using tablets.

“Despite the tough economic environment, the government will provide all-out support for SMEs to grow into companies playing major roles in the global competition,” she said.

A recent survey by K-Biz showed that 30 percent of SMEs exporting their products answered they are positive about this year’s business environment, while 17.3 percent answered negatively.

However, Korea Small Business Institute President Oh Dong-yoon expressed skepticism about the globalization of Korean SMEs this year, saying that it would be difficult to achieve the goal, if the SMEs ministry only supports small and medium-sized exporters without cooperating with other ministries.

“The ministry’s policies should be aimed at globalizing all 7.71 million SMEs, rather than increasing the number of SMEs exporting their products, which has stood at around 90,000,” he said. “In addition, the finance ministry’s support is needed to attract foreign investments in local SMEs, and the education and the justice ministries should also play their roles for SMEs to hire foreign students in Korea.”