SME AI Support Policies and More Discussed... '2026 SME Leaders Forum' Successfully Concludes
Around 400 SME owners attended
The Korea Federation of SMEs said on October 23 that it had successfully concluded the 2026 SME Leaders Forum, the largest annual forum in the SME community, which was held in Jeju for three nights and four days starting October 20 and attended by around 400 SME members from various regions and industries.
The Korea Federation of SMEs held the opening ceremony of the 2026 SME Leaders Forum at Lotte Hotel Jeju on the 20th. The federation’s central association.
View original imageUnder the theme “Together with SMEs, Toward Becoming One of the World’s Three Leading AI Nations,” the forum explored innovation and growth strategies for SMEs.
The forum opened with video congratulatory remarks from National Assembly Speaker Cho Jung-sik and Prime Minister Han Seong-sook. Lectures were then delivered by opinion leaders from various fields, including novelist Kim Hong-shin; Park Yong-woo, director of the Obesity Clinic at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital; Chungbuk Governor Shin Yong-han; docent Jung Woo-cheol; Father Hwang Chang-yeon; Lee Jin-woo, vice president of Simpro TV; physiognomist Park Sung-joon; and Kim Hyung-tae, CEO of TBWA.
At the “SME Innovation Policy Forum for the Era of Physical AI,” held on the second day, experts from the public and private sectors and academia—including Park Young-sun, chair of the Strategic Economic Advisory Group at the Ministry of Finance and Economy; Cho Joo-hyun, head of the Korea SMEs and Startups Institute; and Kim Jun-ha, dean of the Graduate School of AI Policy and Strategy at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology—discussed phased support policies tailored to SMEs.
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Kim Kimoon, chairman of the Korea Federation of SMEs, said, “Since its launch in 2007, the Leaders Forum has established itself as a leading, high-quality forum for the SME community. I hope this forum gives SMEs—which recognize the need for AI but are unsure how to adopt it—time to prepare.”
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