Korea's small and medium-sized corporations view the business outlook for February this year somewhat positively.
Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises (KBIZ) announced the results of the "February 2026 small and medium-sized corporations business outlook survey," conducted on 2,800 small and medium-sized corporations from the 13th to the 19th.
According to the survey, the February business outlook index (SBHI) was 79.5, up 0.2 points from the previous month. It rose 12.0 points from the same month a year earlier (67.5). The business outlook index uses 100 as the baseline; the higher the figure, the more corporations view the economy positively.
The February outlook index for manufacturing recorded 80.9, down 1.3 points from the previous month, while non-manufacturing came in at 78.8, up 0.9 points. By industry, outlooks improved in some manufacturing sectors such as furniture and textiles, while they worsened in medical, precision and optical instruments and watches, and printing.
By item across all industries, domestic sales, operating profit, and funding conditions were expected to improve from the previous month. However, exports were expected to slow somewhat. Employment conditions were seen to improve slightly.
Compared with the average of the past three years, all items except inventory and employment in manufacturing were expected to improve over the previous three-year average. In non-manufacturing, all items except exports and employment were analyzed to improve over the previous three-year average.
The main management difficulties cited by small and medium-sized corporations this month were led by "sluggish sales (product sales)" (52.9%). Rising labor costs (35.4%), intensifying competition among companies (34.4%), and increases in raw material (materials and supplies) prices (31.0%) followed.
As of December last year, the average operating rate of small and medium-sized manufacturers was 75.5%, down 2.4 percentage points from the previous month but up 2.9 percentage points from a year earlier.