KBIZ Chairman Park Sung-taek gives an opening speech at the 2018 Jeju SME Leaders’ Forum in Jeju on June 21. (Photos: KBIZ)

Minister Hong Jong-hak of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) delivers his key-note speech under the theme “Open Innovation.”

About 700 SME representatives assembled for the 2018 Jeju SME Leaders’ Forum in Jeju from June 21-23 to explore a future vision through innovation and collaboration amid rapidly changing business environment.
The forum, held under the theme “Design Future through Innovation and Collaboration,” was hosted by the Korea Federation of SMEs (KBIZ).
In an opening speech, KBIZ Chairman Park Sung-taek said, “I bet that the solutions of the Korean economy should be found through innovation and collaboration, the keywords of the 2018 Jeju SME Leaders’ Forum.” In particular, he said, cooperatives are the best platform in which SMEs can strengthen their competitive edge through collaboration. Chairman Park urged the participants to respond through productivity innovation coming from improving fundamentals without fearing trends of changes.
He stressed that SMEs can raise the competitiveness of the whole of the Korean economy by lowering unit prices through introducing of smart factories and improving quality.
A guarantee on joint purchase of raw materials, which is in place this year, will allow SMEs, always the weak of the procurement market, to wield their own negotiation power, Park said. If North Korea realizes denuclearization and is reborn as a normal country in the wake of the Apr. 27 inter-Korean summit and June 12 US-NK summit, it will serve as new opportunities for South Korean SMEs, he added.
At a closing session of the forum, the SME community issued a statement on the pending labor issues, including the normalization of the calculations in minimum wages, work hour reduction and expanding flexible work hours. In the statement, they called for the labor side to put an end to outside protests and return to the minimum wage committee, setting the rational level of the minimum wage for next year, and expanding flexible work hours.
During the closing session, Rep. Lee Hoon of the Minju Party of Korea, Rep. Chung Yoo-sup of the Korea Liberty Party, and Rep. Jang Byung-wan of the Party for Democracy and Peace were presented with a plague of appreciation in recognition of their leading roles in handling the pending issues concerning SMEs. Rep. Jang submitted a measure to open a bankbook for the Yellow Umbrella Mutual Aid to prevent seizure of assets while Rep. Chung and Rep. Lee jointly proposed a bid to designate business categories suiting small businesses. The two bills were approved by the National Assembly last month.
In his key-note speech under the theme “Open Innovation,” Minister Hong Jong-hak of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) said, “SMEs should change from a closed innovation structure to an open innovation one to overcome low growth rate and bipolarization.” If quality jobs are created under a SME-oriented economic structure, he said, the Korean economy will resurge.
A policy session on SMEs took place on June 22 to handle inter-Korean exchanges through the KBIZ. Cho Bong-hyun, a member of the Presidential Committee of North Economy Cooperation Committee, gave a key-note speech on the topic. Other experts from business, academia, and research circles had in-depth discussions on inter-Korean exchanges and ways of entering markets in Northeast Asia.
On the final session, Kim Ji-hyung of the SK Business Research Institute, gave a lecture under the theme “Digital Transformation for Conventional Enterprises at an era of the 4th Industrial Revolution.” He stressed the need for manufacturing innovation through data and software and the significance of customer-oriented decision-making.