Last year, South Korea's corporations entrepreneurship index ranked 6th in the world.
The Korea Startup Promotion Agency noted on the 19th that South Korea's corporations entrepreneurship index rose to 6th place among 56 countries in the 2024 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey. This marks an upward trend for two consecutive years, following 9th place in 2022 and 8th in 2023.
GEM is a study conducted annually by the non-profit research organization Global Entrepreneurship Research Association (Gera) in the United Kingdom, which diagnoses the level of entrepreneurship by country and analyzes the correlation between entrepreneurship and economic growth. It surveys experts and common adults from over 50 countries, including the United States, France, and Japan, to assess the startup environment and perceptions and calculate the index.
South Korea has participated in GEM since 2008, and last year's entrepreneurship index recorded 6.0 out of 10 points. This is an increase of 0.2 points compared to the previous year. In 2022, it was 5.7 points, and in 2023, it was 5.8 points.
In a survey asking experts about startup conditions, South Korea scored ▲market openness 5.7 ▲level of external cooperation 5.8 ▲education and training in primary and secondary schools 4.8 ▲financial environment 5.4, showing improvements in 7 out of 13 indicators compared to the previous year.
In a survey of general adults regarding their willingness and motivation for startup activities, the percentage of respondents who said it is easy to start a business in South Korea was 40.2%, rising by 1.5 percentage points compared to the previous year. The percentage of respondents who expressed fear of failure in startups was 29.2%, the second-lowest among all participating countries.
Among general adult respondents, the percentage who said they are 'currently engaged in early-stage startup activities' was 11.7%, an increase of 1.5 percentage points from the previous year.
The primary motivation for entrepreneurs was 'income generation,' at 79.6%, the highest. Notably, the percentage of those who selected 'to change the world' increased significantly, marking a rise of 6.4 percentage points to 10.2%.
Choi Yeol-soo, the acting director of the Korea Startup Promotion Agency, said, 'The announcement of this GEM shows that entrepreneurship is spreading in our country,' and added, 'We will actively support the public in cultivating and demonstrating entrepreneurship going forward.'