It has been argued that small business owners experiencing a crisis due to sluggish domestic demand should be systematically classified according to their management environment and receive differentiated support.
On the 26th, O Se-hee, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, and the National Assembly Small Business and Livelihood Forum held the first seminar on 'Strategies for the Next 10 Years for Small Business Owners and Self-Employed in the Era of Great Transition' at the 9th meeting room of the National Assembly. The seminar was attended by Democratic Party members Seo Young-kyo, Jo Joo-hyun, head of the Korea SMEs & Startups Institute (KOSI), Jeon Hyun-hee, a senior member of the Democratic Party, Park Chan-dae, a Democratic Party member, and Lee Jung-hee, a professor at Chung-Ang University.
At this meeting, Cha Nam-soo, the director of the policy headquarters of the Korea Federation of Micro Enterprise (KFME), emphasized that 'the management environment of small business owners should be analyzed in detail, and categorized into four stages: "livelihood-type micro enterprises," "stability-type businesses," "growth-type businesses," and "corporations," to provide customized support appropriate for each group.'
Nam Yoon-hyung, a senior researcher at the Korea SMEs & Startups Institute (KOSI), mentioned the need to redefine the concept of small business owners, stating that 'effective policy promotion is challenging due to the discrepancy between the current legal definition and the actual policy targets.'
He suggested expanding the definition of small business owners to include not only enterprises but also individuals, to improve the coherence of policies. He further argued that 'small business owners should be clearly divided into "livelihood-stability" and "growth-oriented" categories, where livelihood-stability support would include liability management and strengthening social safety nets, while growth-oriented support would provide investment financing and technology development (R&D).'
Jeong Soo-jeong, head of the small business coexistence research office at the Korea SMEs & Startups Institute (KOSI), pointed out the limitations of current support policies, which structurally lead small business owners to repeatedly start anew, and proposed that 'a policy shift is needed to establish a growth ladder for newly established small businesses to achieve sustainable growth.'
Kim Sang-tae, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, noted that the policy of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is biased towards startup growth models, leading to insufficient policy interest in practical issues faced by small businesses, such as liability, low operating profit margins, and leasing problems, and emphasized that 'small business policies must be clearly differentiated from small and medium enterprise and startup policies to focus on solving real issues.'