SBC President Park Cheol-kyu holds a news conference to 

mark two years in office on Jan. 18. (photo: courtesy of SBC, article by S. Y. Kim)

A global entry start-up academy program in which up-and-coming startup firms are given a helping hand to make their way overseas will be expanded so young CEOs can draw up their vision for exploring foreign markets when they launch their start-up companies. This program is part of SBC’s efforts to build a virtuous cycle of a corporate ecosystem that will facilitate start-up businesses, growth, and renewed challenge.

A start-up business technology department will be inaugurated to shore up an organic support connection involving financing, technology, and training for youth CEOs.

SBC President Park Cheol-kyu unveiled these and other major tasks SBC will implement this year at a recent news conference marking his two years in office on Jan. 18.

Park said SBC tries to offer a model for supporting youth start-up entrepreneurs, differentiating itself from others. SBC’s youth start-up program has turned out to be doing better than those being offered by other organizations. The program SBC has been operating since 2011 provides a wide range of support from office to financing and accounting for any of its youth students with creative ideas. Statistics made available show that start-up businesses’ survival rate stands at an average of 50 percent after three years, and the figure drops to 30 percent after five years and 10 percent after a decade. He went on to day that SBC is considering prolonging from the current three years to five years the post-graduation management period for youth start-up entrepreneurs. 

The youth start-up academy program will be expanded to add one more academy in Chungcheongnam-do. The new youth start-up academy will open in early 2014 in cooperation with the Chungcheongnam-do provincial government and other related bodies. 

SBC has set aside 3.82 trillion won for 2014 in a policy fund designed to support SMEs’ facility investments and operation. 

The corporation will funnel 50 billion won into a long-term facility support fund for exclusive use for SMEs with excellent technology potential doing business for more than seven years, a step to help SMEs climb the growth ladder. 

Looking back at the achievements SBC has made over the past two years, SBC President Park said a joint government-private sector fund has been created to help youth, aged 39 or under, with excellent ideas to launch start-up businesses and create jobs. In 2012, 5,070 firms were the beneficiaries of the fund, receiving 193.1 billion won, and in 2013, 165 billion won was extended to 3,572 beneficiary companies. 

The operation of youth start-up academies has been upgraded with the number of recruits surging to 301, up 31 percent from 229 in 2012. The program has paid off: creating 2,245 jobs and posting 141.4 billion in sales through 2013.

SBC has offered a one-stop business support system in which management and technology teams conduct management consulting and suggest solutions to woes companies experience, and arrange trouble-shooting policies.

The corporation has expanded a policy fund being extended on the basis of diagnosing SMEs’ woes and prescribing solutions in a way of innovating SMEs’ management and strengthening their competitive edge. In 2012, 1.155 trillion won was extended to 3,208 companies, while 3,965 companies received 1.507 trillion won in 2013.

The SBC is a non-profit, government-funded organization, established in January 1979 with the goal of contributing to the development of the national economy by efficiently implanting projects to promote SMEs. The SBC, now in its 35th year, was founded for the purpose of buttressing SMEs, which serve as the backbone of the domestic industries after going through the first and second oil shocks of the 1970s.