The number of small and medium sized enterprises positively rating the government-led shared growth drive has almost doubled since the introduction of a comprehensive plan last year, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Monday.

The government implemented a comprehensive plan for supporting shared growth activities on Sept. 29, 2010, and added follow up measures including tax breaks for large firms that invest in SMEs and supporting smaller suppliers in expanding overseas with large companies.

According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy in collaboration with the Korea Industrial Complex Corp. and the Small and Medium Business Administration, 48.8 percent of the SMEs surveyed gave positive a response to the plan.

The results are based on responses from 414 SMEs in some of the country’s largest industries including the electronics, automotive and shipbuilding industries.

In the previous survey, completed in September 2010, 24.9 percent of the respondents gave a positive response.

Along with the increase in positive attitudes toward shared growth projects, more SMEs responded that they have seen positive changes in their transactions with larger firms in terms of fair trade practices.

In the latest survey 55.7 percent of the SMEs were positive about the fairness of transactions with larger firms, while the figure stood at 43.6 percent in September.

The survey also showed that more SMEs have come to consider the process of setting fees for contracts issued by large companies as being fair. According to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, 33.2 percent of the respondents said that contract fees were being set fairly in the latest survey. At the end of September last year, 28.1 percent of SMEs gave similar responses.

In addition to the changes in SMEs’ attitude towards the shared growth project, the ministry said that it and other concerned organizations will continue to work on related projects such as calculating a shared growth index on 56 large companies by March 2012.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)