President Yoon Dae-hee of Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) attends a ceremony to launch the 2021 business at KODIT headquarters in Daegu on Jan. 4. (Photo: KODIT)

Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) will expand guarantee support as its top priority for the New Year to help the Korean economy overcome the economic crisis ignited by the spread of the new coronavirus.

“Now is a critical time to create opportunities for the Korean economy to regain vitality,” said Yoon Dae-hee, president of KODIT in his New Year’s message for 2021.

“In 2021, KODIT will focus all of its capabilities on helping Korea recover its economic vitality and realize innovation-powered growth,” he said.

“We will give customized support to companies such as providing emergency funds to companies that suffer from difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic and help companies in the material, parts and equipment industry and basic industries to revamp themselves,” Yoon explained. “By doing so, we will help them recover or sharpen their competitiveness.”

Yoon added that he will expand differentiated financial and non-financial support to create innovative financial services.

“Last year, we did our best to protect the national economy and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), accounting for 20 percent of 175 trillion won in government measures, in the face of the unprecedented pandemic,” Yoon said.

KODIT played a major role in providing a strong support for SMEs and injecting vitality in the national economy.

Despite the largest-ever financial supply plan, KODIT exceeded its goals in all business sectors, including guarantees, insurance, investment, and the execution of claims and created a new era of 100 trillion won under policy finance management, further consolidating its position as a leading state-run financial institution.

“In addition, KODIT made great achievements in developing new business areas to advance into the future such as acquiring a license for the credit information business, building the Korean-type Paydex, being designated as a technology evaluation institution and opening our office in Hanoi, Vietnam,” Yoon said.

“First, we should spare no effort in helping the Korean economy overcome the coronavirus crisis and create an opportunity for a rebound,” Yoon said.

“Active financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises is more important than ever as they are the basis of the Korean economy and significantly contributing to the creation of jobs.”

Therefore, KODIT set the total amount of guarantees for 2021 at 80.3 trillion won, up 12.8 trillion won from the previous year.

“Our guarantee for major policy sectors such as start-ups and exporters climb to 48.5 trillion won, up 2.5 trillion won from the previous year,” Yoon added.

Second, Yoon zeroed in on strengthening the growth momentum of the Korean economy by discovering innovative companies that will pioneer the future.

“While strengthening support for technology development and infrastructure investment in high-growth sectors such as bio-technology and health, system semiconductors, and contents, we have to yield tangible results of the Korean New Deal by implementing KODIT’s plan.”

In addition, the technology evaluation should be actively used to support guarantees, strengthen the connection with technology consulting, and establish a close network with the private sector to expand the utilization of technology evaluation to investment valuation.

Third, KODIT ought to actively respond to rapidly changing financial environments with differentiated and innovative financial services, according to Yoon.

“The combination of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the COVID-19 pandemic is bringing about a drastic change in the financial industry by advancing a non-face-to-face culture and digital transformation in society as a whole,” Yoon said.

Fourth, Yoon promised to establish KODIT as a trusted government-run institution through active communications and the realization of social values.

“To this end, we need to create a horizontal organizational culture where employees can freely express their opinions to their bosses. The management has to find various solutions to improving employees’ working conditions and welfare by constantly communicating with the labor union.”

Last but not least, we need to pay much attention to designing ESG-related management systems and devising support measures for corporations regarding ESG.