Ministry of SMEs and Startups Supports Adoption of Smart Services by Small and Medium Enterprises

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Jong-hwa] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in increasing productivity in the service sector and creating new customers and markets by utilizing big data and artificial intelligence (AI).

On the 19th, the Ministry announced that it has finalized the '2022 Smart Service Support Project for SMEs' and is recruiting implementing agencies responsible for recruiting participating companies, conducting on-site evaluations, and inspections.

The 'Smart Service Support Project' was established in 2020 to help SMEs improve productivity in the service sector and create new customers and markets through high value-added products by supporting the use of advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) such as big data and AI.

So far, support has been provided to a total of 295 companies for building solutions for business transformation to non-face-to-face and online methods (online medical care, health, education, etc.), solving public problems, automating tasks, and improving efficiency in logistics and customer management, among other internal and external business innovations.

This year, the support scale will increase slightly compared to last year, with a total of 165 companies selected for support. In particular, a new advanced task category will be introduced to select companies that have already built smart service solutions and have shown excellent performance, providing additional support of up to 100 million KRW.

This announcement is for recruiting implementing agencies that will be responsible for discovering and closely supporting demand (adopting) companies participating in this year's project, conducting on-site evaluations for selecting support targets, and checking the progress of the project. Public institutions or private organizations (non-profit organizations) with project implementation capabilities, infrastructure, and expertise can apply.

Details on the application for the support project for companies wishing to build solutions will be separately announced in March once the implementing agencies are selected.