Busan City and the Ministry of SMEs Select Location for 'Small Business Innovation Hub' Competition

Ministry of SMEs Leads 'Call for Candidate Areas for New Small Business Innovation Hubs This Year'

Up to 1 Billion KRW for Setup, Over 1 Billion KRW Annual Government Funding After Opening

A complex startup support space called the ‘Small Business Innovation Hub,’ which provides one-stop services for startup education, experience, and operation to prospective small business owners and youth, will be established in Busan.

Busan City was finally selected in the Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ competition for ‘2023 Small Business Innovation Hub New Installation Candidate Regions’ targeting metropolitan local governments.

Busan Small Business Innovation Hub Development Plan.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups’ ‘Small Business Innovation Hub Creation Project’ is a project that installs and operates job-residence-enjoyment (職住樂)-type startup and innovation spaces where startup youth and prospective small business owners can work, live, and enjoy themselves by utilizing idle regional assets in connection with local governments.

The city applied for the competition with plans to utilize approximately 1,130㎡ of idle space on the 6th floor of Jagalchi Modern Market in Jung-gu to establish ▲ a food and beverage startup-specialized shared kitchen reflecting the characteristics of Jagalchi Market ▲ a shared office for nurturing entrepreneurs ▲ a media studio for product photography, content production, and broadcasting ▲ capsule sleeping rooms and showers for rest ▲ multipurpose seminar and education rooms ▲ a pop-up store for early-stage entrepreneurs to experience sales ▲ and Busan-style small business innovation hub features such as startup incubation linked with local creators and startup accelerators.

Busan, Seoul, Daejeon, and Mokpo applied for this competition, and Busan and Daejeon were finally selected.

With Busan City’s final selection in this competition, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to invest up to 1 billion KRW in national funds in 2023 for remodeling and purchasing necessary equipment to build the innovation hub space, and after its opening in 2024, it will allocate more than 1 billion KRW annually for operating various startup and cultural programs.

Mayor Park Hyung-jun stated, “The Innovation Hub is a project that provides small business owners not only with startup incubator spaces but also with living and resting spaces. Through the establishment of this Busan-style Innovation Hub, it will become a regional living startup base platform where local youth and prospective small business owners can generate creative ideas and realize them.” He added, “Busan citizens will be able to consume and test entrepreneurs’ products, and startup youth will have opportunities to network freely, communicate, innovate, and grow.”

He also said, “We consider it very meaningful to be selected for a national competition project at a time of youth outflow to the metropolitan area and a crisis in jobs and local universities,” and added, “We will do our best to become a city leading regional balanced development and youth and small business entrepreneurship.”