SEOUL — The Seoul Business Agency, an organization exclusively dedicated to the cultivation of small and medium-sized enterprises and venture firms, will expand the number of companies using the Hi Seoul Brand in 2012, and target one trillion won in combined sales by increasing its various assistance programs.
The Hi Seoul Brand project is a marketing assistance program for SMEs, which the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Business Agency have been conducting jointly since 2004. The program allows companies that have proven their value but experience difficulties cultivating their own brands to use ‘Hi Seoul” as their common brand. Hi Seoul is the promotional slogan of the Seoul Metropolitan Government.
A total of 44 companies deemed to have growth potential and global competitiveness have been newly selected through four rounds of rigorous screening after an open recruitment campaign from SMEs in Seoul in November 2011. Henceforth a total of 150 companies, including 106 firms that were re-selected from last year, will be operating with the Hi Seoul Brand. They include 45 firms in information and telecommunication, 32 in fashion and beauty, nine in content development, 14 in eco-friendly green business, 15 in biomedicine, and 35 in lifestyle.
The SBA has set KRW one trillion as the target for combined sales of the products under the Hi Seoul Brand for this year. This milestone comes nine years after the city government launched the project in 2004, with the value increasing more than 100-fold from KRW 9.5 billion. The SBA aims to reach its target through a diverse range of initiatives, including joint product development that allows for cooperation in core technology and marketing between Hi Seoul firms; domestic and international promotion through various media channels to raise awareness of the brand products; support for participation in professional exhibitions in advanced markets and assistance with the dispatch of delegations for market development on six occasions per year; the supply of products to online shops exclusively for the Hi Seoul Brand in CJ Mall and G Market and other related types of promotional assistance; and support for the cultivation of global star enterprises among companies with potential.
Meanwhile, in order to fulfill their corporate social responsibility as firms enjoying the benefits provided by the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the companies will continue to make cash and gift in-kind donations through the City Government’s welfare programs, including the Hope Plus Account (donations to assist the self-sustenance of underprivileged people) and Dream Account (education of children from low-income families) in 2012 again after 2011.
