Government Provides 22 Billion KRW Support to Enhance Competitiveness of SoBuJang Companies

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Haeyoung] The government will provide 22 billion KRW to support the competitiveness of products from 소재·부품·장비 (SoBuJang, Materials, Parts, and Equipment) companies.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on the 14th the 'SoBuJang Reliability-Based Utilization Support Project' containing these details.

This project supports small and medium SoBuJang companies and mid-sized enterprises that need commercialization of developed products to secure product competitiveness through specialized institutions with infrastructure (public research institutes, private testing organizations, universities, etc.). From this month until June next year, 22 billion KRW of national funds will be invested and support will be divided into regular type (up to 100 million KRW per company) and occasional type (up to 30 million KRW per company) according to the purpose of service use.

This year, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy restructured the project to focus on reliability and material performance improvement to minimize overlap with other SoBuJang-related support projects. Additionally, the proportion of support for the regular type, which has a high competition rate and performance, was expanded, and a second inquiry evaluation was added to the first written evaluation when selecting participating companies. Preferential criteria were also established. If the field of the applied product or technology is related to SoBuJang core strategic technologies, 3 points will be added, and if the applying company is a SoBuJang top company or an anchor/cooperative company within a specialized complex or a root company, 2 points will be added.

The project announcement can be found on the websites of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology.