Korea Federation of SMEs Seeks Joint Response Measures for Major Accidents by Industry in Seoul Area

'Workshop on Strengthening Major Accident Response Capabilities' Held

The Seoul Regional Headquarters of the Korea Federation of SMEs announced on the 21st that it held the ‘Workshop to Strengthen the Response Capabilities for Serious Accidents by Industry in the Seoul Area’ at the SME DMC Tower. The workshop was attended by about 50 executives and employees from cooperatives and SMEs in various industries in the Seoul area, and included education by a professional instructor on the purpose and cases of the Serious Accident Punishment Act, an introduction and demonstration of accident prevention equipment used in industrial sites, and a discussion session on strengthening the response capabilities of SME cooperatives against serious accidents.

During the discussion session, participants shared on-site difficulties faced by industries such as furniture, advertising materials, machinery, and printing in the Seoul area, and discussed practical support measures for responding to serious accidents. Since SMEs often perform multiple roles individually and find it difficult to respond alone, joint responses through SME cooperatives are important. Therefore, they agreed to move away from uniform support such as individual SME consulting and strive to derive appropriate support measures that meet the demands of the field.

Since the Serious Accident Punishment Act was expanded to apply to SMEs with fewer than 50 employees starting January 27 of this year, the Seoul Regional Headquarters of the Korea Federation of SMEs plans to develop and distribute customized serious accident response manuals for certain industries using a budget of 100 million won from the Seoul Metropolitan Government this year. Park Seung-chan, head of the Seoul Regional Headquarters of the Korea Federation of SMEs, said, “Smaller SMEs with fewer than 50 employees lack interest and capacity to respond to the Serious Accident Punishment Act, so joint responses through cooperatives are urgently needed.” He added, “We will strive to expand various support projects necessary for improving the working environment safety of SMEs through industry-specific cooperatives.”