The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of SMEs and Startups) announced on the 24th that it will be conducting a recruitment notice for the selection of new Centennial Small Business Owners in 2025 in order to discover excellent small business owners with long experience and tradition and to spread their success models.
A 'century-old small business owner' is a small business owner who has made a significant contribution to the local community while running a business for a long time and is expected to continue growing based on accumulated experience. A century-old store refers to an excellent small business owner with over 30 years of experience, and a century-old small business owner refers to a skilled small business owner with over 15 years of experience in the manufacturing industry with less than 10 employees.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups has been operating the 'Century Store and Century Small Business Owner Development Project' since 2018, and has selected a total of 2,288 centurion-old small business owners over the past seven years and provided them with various support measures, including certification plaques and brand promotion, facility improvement, and online and offline sales channel development.
In addition, last year, the legal basis for designating and supporting century-old small business owners was established through the revision of the Small Business Act (effective July 17, 2024), and the special application of Onnuri Gift Certificate merchants (effective September 20, 2024) was expanded, thereby strengthening the institutional foundation to support the systematic fostering and stable growth of century-old small business owners.
This year, we plan to select about 100 century-old stores and century-old small businesses by considering factors such as industry and regional competition rate.
Applicants are small business owners with over 30 years of experience as a Century-Old Store, and small business owners with over 15 years of experience (manufacturing). They are selected through a comprehensive evaluation of their management capabilities, product/service differentiation and excellence, and contribution to the local community.
In particular, this year, we plan to actively discover excellent businesses that are growing together with the local community, such as hidden local restaurants and businesses with high social contribution, and reflect the results in the evaluation by holding a public awareness voting event in which local residents participate, and we plan to work on raising brand awareness and promoting it to the public.
Companies selected as Centennial Stores and Centennial Small Business Owners will receive a certificate, a certification signboard, and a storyboard containing their growth story. They will also receive benefits such as additional points (3-5 points) and priority selection opportunities when applying for 12 small business support projects within the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, such as the Strong Small Business Growth Support, Smart Store Technology Dissemination, and Small Business Collaboration Activation Project.
In addition, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is also strengthening public-private cooperation with financial institutions (such as KB Financial Group), large corporations (such as Lotte Welfood), and public institutions (such as Korail Distribution), and is continuously expanding various linked support to help century-old small business owners open up sales channels and strengthen their brand capabilities, such as establishing dedicated stores, entering online and offline platforms, and planning excellent product exhibitions in conjunction with accompanying festivals.
Lee Dae-geon, director of the Small Business Policy Bureau at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “Century-old small business owners are important members and assets that preserve regional traditions and history and lead the growth of the local economy.” He added, “We will strengthen our support so that century-old small business owners can grow beyond regional anchor stores (central stores that serve as signboards) to global companies.”
Detailed information regarding the recruitment notice can be found on the websites of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Small Business Corporation starting February 24th, and applications can be submitted online on the Small Business 24 website from February 24th to March 31st.
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