Ministry of SMEs and Startups to Eradicate Unreasonable Practices Affecting SMEs and Small Business Owners

First and Second Vice Ministers of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups Engage in On-site Communication

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 29th that the First and Second Vice Ministers had consecutively held on-site meetings aimed at improving unreasonable practices affecting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and small business owners.

The ministry is working to identify and improve irrational systems entrenched as long-standing practices among SMEs and small business owners, as well as unfair trade practices and inefficient administrative procedures that no longer reflect the current era.

To this end, since April, the ministry has established a public proposal submission portal on its website and has been holding internal working-level staff discussions to identify a wide range of issues. In particular, a "Task Force for Identifying Normalization Issues" involving private-sector experts is systematically preparing practical policy improvement measures.

On the 28th, First Vice Minister Noh Yongseok visited Seoshin Food in Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province, to listen to on-site challenges and discuss improvement measures related to expanding support for technology development (R&D) to strengthen manufacturing innovation capabilities of SMEs, the spread of testbed factories for SMEs, and improvements to the technology protection system. On the 29th, an expert meeting was held to identify and improve chronic unfair trade practices and inefficient administrative procedures that have become entrenched in the SME field.

On the same day, Second Vice Minister Lee Byungkwon also held a meeting to identify concrete cases of difficulties faced by SMEs and small business owners operating on online platforms, including commission burdens, excessive price competition, restricted search exposure, and the transfer of refund and logistics costs. Based on feedback from the field, the ministry plans to actively incorporate the proposed tasks into policy, while also institutionalizing win-win cooperation with online platforms.

For the issues identified so far, the ministry has already initiated improvement procedures for those that can be addressed through revisions to enforcement decrees or rules, or through internal guideline updates.

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