Up to 50 Million KRW Voucher Support to Boost Competitiveness of Manufacturing SMEs

2024 SME Innovation Voucher Support Project 2nd Announcement

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 10th that it will conduct the "2024 SME Innovation Voucher Support Project 2nd Announcement," which provides consulting, technical support, and marketing as a package to strengthen the competitiveness of manufacturing SMEs.

This 2nd announcement is recruiting participating companies for a total of three types of vouchers: Regional Autonomous Voucher, Convergence Voucher, and Serious Accident Prevention Voucher. The Regional Autonomous Voucher is a voucher exclusively for the regional specialized project "Legend 50+," with approximately 14 billion KRW planned for support. Only companies participating in "Legend 50+" selected by local governments can apply, and to expedite selection and support, on-site evaluations are waived, and beneficiary companies are selected through document evaluation only.

The Convergence Voucher supports collaboration among various industries by providing consulting, technical support, and marketing as a package, with about 1 billion KRW planned for support. As the Serious Accident Punishment Act has been expanded to small-scale SMEs with fewer than 50 employees, the Serious Accident Prevention Voucher will also be supported at a scale of about 2 billion KRW to help prevent serious accidents in manufacturing small enterprises. The Serious Accident Prevention Voucher supports the establishment of safety and health management systems and the acquisition of safety equipment effective in accident prevention for manufacturing small enterprises, including work environment risk assessments and worker health management.

Kim Woo-jung, Director of Regional Enterprise Policy, said, “The 2024 SME Innovation Voucher Project has actively reflected field opinions to lower the support threshold, which resulted in high interest from manufacturing SMEs during the 1st announcement,” and “This 2nd announcement is recruiting participating companies mainly for specialized vouchers that strategically support specific fields to strengthen the competitiveness of manufacturing SMEs, so we hope that local manufacturing SMEs will show great interest.”