Changes rate in Exports of Small, Medium and Large Enterprises compared to Korea Exports: SME Trends and Development Possibility
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Choi Soo Ho , Kim Shin Joong 
Published: December 2024

Korea accounted for 0.83% of large enterprises(805), 2.01% of medium-sized enterprises(1,940), and 97.14% of small and medium-sized enterprises(93,491) based on export enterprises in 2018. Based on the export amount in 2019, 64.22% of large enterprises($347,600million), 17.30% of medium-sized enter- prises($93,659million), and 18.47% of small and medium-sized enterprises($99,969million) were repre- sented. The total number of export items was 5.8, which was 49.3 for large enterprises, 30.2 for mid-sized enterprises and 4.9 for SMEs.
As of 2019, the trade balance was $49.9billion for large enterprises, $15.2billion for medium-sized enter- prises and $19.4billion for SMEs. SMEs recorded deficits because they had more imports than exports. The reason is mainly because raw materials are imported from abroad, processed, some are delivered to large companies and some are exported. SMEs need a protection policy at the level of the government and large companies, as foreign exchange losses can increase when the exchange rate rises.
In this study, trends and change rates of total exports and exports of SMEs, medium-sized enterprises, and large enterprises were examined. And the future direction of each enterprises size was analyzed. To do this, we collected data from the National Statistical Portal of the National Statistical Office. The analysis period used a total of 132 monthly data from January 2009 to December 2019. The change rate of exports used in this study represents the change rate compared to the same month of the previous year. The change rate and synchronism of total exports and exports of SMEs, mid-sized enterprises and large enterprises were compared.
As a result of the correlation analysis, the total exports are high in the order of large enterprises(0.987), small and medium-sized enterprises(0.750) and mid-sized enterprises(0.653). Small and medium-sized enterprises have a high relationship with total exports(0.750), large enterprises(0.681) and mid-sized enter- prises(0.277). As a result, it seemed that SMEs and mid-sized enterprises had little relationship with each other.
It is a regression analysis in which total export is a dependent variable and SMEs, mid-sized enterprises and large enterprises are independent variables. Coefficient came out with a high positive value in the order of large enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, and medium-sized enterprises. Independent variables such as large enterprises, small and medium-sized enterprises, and medium-sized enterprises were statistically significant in p-value(≦ 0.01) and t statistics. As the adjusted R-squared is calculated as 0.999, the change rate in the total export of dependent variables is judged to be 99.9% explanatory. And Durbin-Watson stat was calculated as 1.706, which means that each variable is independent of each other.
As of January 2009(=100), the growth rate analysis was highest in the order of medium-sized companies (227%), large companies(219%), total exports(216%) and SMEs(200%). As the growth rate of SMEs is relatively small, it seems that we need a lot of attention in the future. In the analysis of the change rate, large and medium-sized enterprises are slightly larger than small and medium-sized enterprises. However, the movements of each indicator are similar in general. In 2019, it was around the previous low of -15% after 2013 and 2016. Therefore, each indicator shows the possibility of a rebound after 2020.
In the distribution chart, all the indicators are all concentrated on the left side and have a long tail on the right side. Small and medium-sized enterprises showed relatively high frequency in a small dis- tribution compared to large and medium-sized enterprises. In the scatter analysis, the distribution of the total exports and large enterprises are almost upward in a straight line.