Woori Bank and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy are recruiting companies for the eighth cohort of the Rising Leaders 300 programme, which identifies mid-sized firms and mid-sized firm candidates with growth potential and provides financial and consulting support. Selected companies will be offered loans of up to 30 billion won each and an interest-rate discount of up to 1.0 percentage point in the first year.

Woori Bank said on July 27 that it will recruit participating companies for the eighth cohort of Rising Leaders 300 with the ministry until Aug. 14.

Rising Leaders 300 is a programme that selects mid-sized firms and mid-sized firm candidates with technological capabilities and growth prospects and supports them with financial and non-financial services.

Woori Bank selected about 225 companies from the first to seventh cohorts and provided more than 2 trillion won in cumulative funding. Support under the eighth cohort is divided into four areas: Global Leader, K-tech Lead, Future Value Driven and AX Leap.

Four agencies under the ministry will conduct initial reviews and make recommendations by area. They are the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, the Korea Federation of SMEs, the Korea Association of Industrial Intelligentization and the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology. Woori Bank will then review the appropriateness of financial support and plans to select final beneficiaries in early September.

Final selected companies will be offered loans of up to 30 billion won each and an interest-rate discount of up to 1.0 percentage point in the first year.

Non-financial services will also be provided, including export-import finance solutions, ESG response consulting, business succession consulting and digital transformation.

Park Hwa-geun (박화근), head of Woori Bank's corporate sales strategy department, said the bank plans to identify mid-sized companies with high growth potential. He said it will expand financial support so selected firms can grow into companies that lead the national economy.