SME Minister: “A leading role in national growth projects”; consultative body to launch at the end of this month

[Financial News] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups will form a consultative body with the SME sector at the end of this month to expand SMEs’ participation in national growth strategies, including the government’s Three Mega-Projects. SME and venture industry representatives asked Minister Lee So-young to expand SMEs’ participation in major national projects so that they, too, can share in the benefits of economic revitalization.
Minister Lee told reporters at KBIZ on the 8th, “We plan to regularly convene a group of SMEs involved in the Three Mega-Projects, tentatively named the ‘SME Consultative Group,’” adding, “We expect to launch it at the end of October.”
The MSS plans to identify what businesses need through the consultative body and raise their concerns at government meetings. SME and MSS participation in the implementation of the government’s major national growth projects had been limited, but it has expanded since Minister Lee took office.
Minister Lee said, “After the Cabinet meeting I attended for the first time last week, I pointed out that the three national growth projects—the Three Mega-Projects, the seven SEED projects, and the five-pole, three-special-zone growth engines—contained too little about SMEs and that the MSS was also missing from the implementation framework. I also said that the MSS was not invited to the third meeting on the Three Mega-Projects, chaired by President Lee Jae-myung that same day. President Lee said, ‘Then start attending from today.’”
President Lee also instructed that representatives of SMEs attend the meetings, alongside representatives of large companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. The MSS plans to choose attendees based on the meeting agenda rather than limiting participation to specific companies.
The MSS’s role has also been newly incorporated into the government’s seven SEED projects. Minister Lee said, “A document released last week by the Ministry of Science and ICT named the MSS for the first time as the lead coordinating department.”
At a tea meeting with SME group leaders that followed, Minister Lee stressed, “The MSS’s job is to make SMEs and startups confident drivers of growth, rather than leaving them as targets or beneficiaries of mutual-growth efforts or support.” The meeting, attended by 15 SME industry figures, including Ki-Moon Kim, chairman of the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, was held to celebrate Minister Lee’s inauguration and give her an opportunity to meet the SME group leaders.
Minister Lee stressed that she would actively speak up to ensure that SMEs and startups can participate confidently as leading players, not supporting actors, in national growth projects involving more than 1,000 trillion won in investment.
Chairman Kim echoed the call for SMEs to participate in national growth projects, identifying the widening gap between large companies and SMEs as a key issue.
He noted, “In the second quarter of this year, large companies’ operating profit margin was 19.1%, about four times the level a year earlier, while the figure for SMEs was 5.3%, up just 0.3 percentage points. The benefits of growth are not being shared evenly, and the income gap between large companies and SMEs is widening.” He added, “It is a major change for SMEs to take part in national projects as confident drivers of growth rather than remain perennial subcontractors. It is important for SMEs to participate in national projects and share in the tangible benefits of economic revitalization.”
SME group leaders also urged efforts to help SMEs establish themselves as leading players in the Korean economy through regulatory reform and expanded participation in major national projects.

[email protected] Kim Hyun-cheol, Lee Ju-mi Reporter