Da·Jungso Enterprises and Agriculture-Fishery Cooperation Foundation 'Innovation Partnership Support'
[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] The Foundation for Large, Small, and Medium Enterprises and Agriculture-Fishery Cooperation announced on the 28th that it will sign an agreement with 43 large corporations and public enterprises to support innovation activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The "Large and Small Enterprise Innovation Partnership Support Project" involves the sponsoring companies, including large corporations, public enterprises, and mid-sized companies, along with the government pooling funds to support innovation activities at SME sites. From 2012 through last year, a total of 61 sponsoring companies contributed a win-win cooperation fund of 52.8 billion KRW, combined with 9 billion KRW of government budget, raising a total of 61.8 billion KRW.
Since last year, the support fields have been expanded and reorganized to include product, process, and organizational innovation to reflect diverse industry demands, and this year, support for the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) sector was newly established.
The Cooperation Foundation conducted application, reception, and evaluation processes and selected a consortium of 43 sponsoring companies. This year, a total project budget of 10.23 billion KRW will be raised, including 9.73 billion KRW from the win-win cooperation fund and 500 million KRW from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups budget. It plans to support 494 innovation tasks, including expert on-site diagnosis and consulting and subsequent improvement activities, targeting 481 SMEs.
In particular, the newly introduced ESG sector this year accounts for more than half of all tasks, reaching 260 cases, indicating a very high demand on-site for SMEs' ESG response.
A representative example is Nongshim, which plans to support a task to recover waste heat generated at the cooperating SME SND's business site and reuse it as energy needed on-site. This is expected to achieve both energy savings and a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere simultaneously.
Additionally, Korea South-East Power and KEPCO KDN will support the establishment of safety and health management system frameworks and certification acquisition to respond to major accidents in SMEs.
A representative from the Cooperation Foundation emphasized, "Since SMEs have limitations in independent responses, it is more necessary to support SMEs' ESG response through win-win cooperation from the perspective of partnership across the entire supply chain."
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