Korea Federation of SMEs "Recruiting Cooperatives to Promote Collaboration"

Divided into Business Development Support and Funding Support
First-ever Sector- and Stage-specific Announcements This Year

The Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 20th that it is recruiting cooperatives wishing to support the activation of SME collaboration. The related ‘Integrated Announcement for Cooperative Joint Business Support’ is scheduled to be held on the 21st.

Kim Ki-moon, Chairman of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business. Photo by Jo Yong-jun jun21@

The ‘Business Development Support’ project includes the Joint Business SOS Support Group, which provides ongoing support for discovering new joint business ideas (assignment and support of consultants), professional consulting support for joint business commercialization plans (up to 15 million KRW per consortium), and the innovative joint business support project that helps build collaboration models and advance business (up to 100 million KRW in direct project expenses per cooperative). In addition, a dedicated joint business doctor provides customized diagnosis and advice as needed during the process of promoting new or existing joint businesses on an ongoing basis.

‘Financial Support’ includes a joint purchase exclusive guarantee support project that supports guarantees for raw materials joint purchase funds, and a cooperative fund recommendation project in which the Federation recommends policy funds (Small and Medium Business Corporation).

The ‘Professional Personnel Support Project,’ which supports up to 2 people per cooperative with 2 million KRW per person per month when hiring professional personnel necessary for joint business, was closed last month through a separate announcement. Further recruitment will be announced separately in the future.

Jojin-hyung, Head of the Cooperative Division at the Korea Federation of SMEs, said, “This year, for the first time, we conducted an integrated announcement by field and stage for cooperative joint businesses, so cooperatives wishing to promote joint businesses are expected to easily check and participate. We will continue to strive to discover various collaboration models so that cooperatives can leap forward as a growth platform for SMEs.”