Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light, though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they, do not go gentle into that good night.
Korea backs 100 small businesses in global export push
Vice Minister of SMEs and Startups Lee Byeong-gweon, fifth from left in front row, poses with small business owners at Pangyo Startup Zone in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Yonhap
By Jhoo Dong-chan
Korea is betting that its next generation of global export powerhouses will not come from sprawling family-run conglomerates, but from the kitchens, boutiques and workshops of its neighborhood small business owners.
The Ministry of Startups and SMEs said Thursday that it selected 100 small and micro-businesses to receive tailored packaging, regulatory consulting and up to 100 million won ($72,000) each in commercialization funding. The initiative, dubbed Local to Global, reflects a strategic pivot by Seoul to transform specialized domestic merchants into international consumer brands, capturing growing global demand for Korean food, beauty, fashion and lifestyle products.
The final cohort was narrowed down from 649 applicants through a highly competitive 6.5-to-1 audition process. To ensure transparency, the ministry broadcast the proceedings live on YouTube and introduced a public evaluation panel consisting of 15 domestic citizens and five foreign nationals, who vetted products firsthand at the Pangyo Creative Economy Valley startup hub.
The selected enterprises relied heavily on distinct cultural storytelling and modern digital marketing.
Among the top awardees was Jeongnammi Group, a multigenerational bakery that replicates the appearance of regional root vegetables using traditional rice cake kneading techniques, which is looking to expand from Japan into Southeast Asia. In the fashion and beauty sectors, Nitche, an apparel brand capitalizing on high-profile K-pop endorsements, and BLB Entertainment, a skincare firm specializing in rapid-treatment mask sheets, were recognized for their aggressive social media localization strategies.
Even traditional craftsmanship found a pathway to digitization.
Studio All, a boutique woodwork studio, secured its spot after successfully listing its nonpowered wooden resonance speakers on the American e-commerce platform Uncommon Goods.
Government officials emphasized that the push is designed to inject vitality into rural and local economies by linking regional heritage directly with global logistics networks.
"Global interest in Korean consumer goods has reached an unprecedented high, driven by the structural reach of the Korean Wave," Lee Byeong-gweon, vice minister of startups and SMEs, said during the selection ceremony. "We will aggressively back these local entrepreneurs so they can transcend domestic market limitations and compete as true multinational players."
This article was published with the assistance of generative AI and edited by The Korea Times.