Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) and Japan's Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation (SME Support, Japan) moved to share regional innovation policies and strengthen cooperation to address the shared challenge in both countries of regional extinction.
Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) said on the 23rd in Tokyo that it attended the "Korea-Japan regular meeting of SME support agencies" hosted by Japan's SME Support, Japan, and discussed ways to cooperate for revitalizing regional economies and building a sustainable regional economic ecosystem.
This meeting is part of ongoing cooperation since the two agencies agreed in 1997 to hold regular meetings. It was prepared to not only share policy experience and operational know-how between the two countries' SME support agencies, but also to identify cooperation models to support regional economic revitalization and innovation-led growth and expand policy linkages.
At the meeting, the two agencies presented policies under the theme of "sharing policies for revitalizing regional economies and regional innovation." SME Support, Japan introduced its "100 Billion Yen Company Declaration" project, which focuses on nurturing small and midsize firms with high growth potential, and shared cases of regional economic revitalization and responses to regional extinction.
Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME) introduced the "regional industry growth project," in which local governments and regional innovation institutions cooperate to foster regional strategic industries, and the "co-growth network loan," which supports supply chain stability and shared growth by consolidation of large and mid-sized companies with partner SMEs. It particularly emphasized that strengthening the competitiveness of regional companies is a core task for balanced national development and responding to regional extinction.
The two agencies focused on building a customized support system by growth stage to systematically nurture promising regional SMEs and on ways to link regional innovation policies. In particular, they compared KOSME's "Jump-Up program" with Japan's "100 Billion Yen Company Declaration" project and shared policy implications for revitalizing regional economies and creating jobs.
Kang Seok-jin, chair of Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME), said, "Regional extinction is a shared challenge that Korea and Japan face together, and the growth of regional companies is very important to enhancing the sustainability of regions," adding, "We will continue to use the regular meetings to share the policy experience accumulated by both agencies and expand cooperation so we can inject new vitality into regional economies."