OREANDA-NEWS. May 30, 2013. POSCO has entered into a cooperation agreement on QSS innovation activity expansion with the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses. The agreement was reached at the Yeouido main building of the federation, where POSCO announced the expansion of QSS innovation activities to increase small and medium-sized companies` productivity.

At the ceremony, over 100 leaders of SMEs drawn from a wide range of sectors were in attendance, along with dignitaries such as CEO Chung Joonyang, Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses Chairman Kim Kimun, and Vice Minister Kim Jaehong of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources.

This agreement will mean an expansion to POSCO`s existing QSS innovation activities targeting small and medium-sized companies, which have run since 2005. The expansion will enable greater shared growth among SMEs.

POSCO and the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses will carry out a pilot project this coming June. This year, 50 small and medium-sized companies will take part, gaining access to QSS innovation activity support. The number of participating companies will expand to 100 companies. What`s more, the innovation activities will be expanded to support public corporations and both small and medium-sized company cooperatives.

This cooperation consists of # model QSS activity-site benchmarking and change management education support # recommendation and selection of QSS innovation activity companies # providing QSS activity techniques to nurture innovation activities at small and medium-sized companies and # monitoring and feedback to settle in QSS activities. Needless to say, the more than 100 representatives of the SMEs who attended were impressed. They were particularly pleased about the plans to boost SME competitiveness and the way that POSCO shared key QSS activity cases.

``That the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses and POSCO are playing a leading role in increasing SME productivity has particular significance,`` Vice Minister Kim Jaehong of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources, said. ``We expect this to become an opportunity to increase productivity through management, environment, and process innovation.``

The members from SMEs who took part were looking forward to great things. ``QSS innovation activities are integral to SME competitiveness and will help foster a creative economy through increased productivity and job creation.``