Comparative Study on the Characteristics of SMEs and Support System for Them in Korea and U.K.
Authors:   Asia-Europe Perspective Association, Jeong Ki-Man 
Published: June 2018

Small and medium-size enterprises(SMEs) have been doing great role in the national economy. It is too obvious to require any argument when we see only some statistics on the economic index. In 2008, the SMEs' portion of the number of enterprises and employment is more heavy than that of large-size enterprise in Korea. Impotance of SMEs are common all over the world. Many government has making and doing the policy for SMEs to escalate it's competition because of its importance to her economy. This paper try to study the characteristics of SMEs and support system for them in Korea and United Kingdom.
Literature review, world-wide web surfing and empirical studies were done to reach the goals of this study. Major results are ad follows:There is a little difference between two countries about definition SMEs. In general, SMEs are enterprises that employ fewer than 300 people and have an capital of at most 30 billion in Korea. SMEs are enterprises that employ fewer than 250 people and have an annual sales of at most ￡22.8 Million or an annual balance sheet total of at most ￡2.8million. in U.K. The number employed is the number of yearly labour units, that is, the number of fulltime workers employed during one year.
Like Korea, Small and medium sized enterprises are the backbone of Britain. Britain is a nation of small and medium sized enterprises. According to the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR)’s Enterprise Directorate Analytical Unit, in 2007, the UK economy is 99% SMEs. So out of a total of 4.8m UK businesses, less than 1% were large corporations(i.e. over 250 employees). UK SMEs, employing one person or more, employ 14.23m people, out of a working population of approximately 30 million. There is substantial evidence that the UK economy is supported by SMEs performance, and that improving performance will have a substantially positive effect on entire UK economy. UK Government work closely with the sector to deliver critical business support to SMEs.
Since 1980 the U. K. small business population has increased greatly. Small businesses have also acquired a key role in UK economic policies paralleled by a huge development in support structures to promote them. The U.K. government’s policy on SMEs is to encourage and support these organizations to compete for public sector contracts where this is consistent with value for money policy the UK regulations. There are lots of same characteristics of SMEs policy of government between Korea and U.K.
This paper also to investigate weather characteristics of SMEs statistics between them. Paired t-test was used to test them. Results of paired t-test for enterprises by number of employees does not show significant difference between two countries. But, results of paired t-test for employment by number of employees shows significant difference between two countries. Results of paired t-test for enterprises by industrial sectors and results of paired t-test for employment by industrial sectors do not show differences between two countries. These results implicate that two countries can refer their SMEs policy each other.