Business

Minister: Digitalization support up to ₺1 million will be given to SMEs

Varank, Minister of Industry and Technology, stated that KOSGEB has made the third call with the theme of “Digitalization in the Manufacturing Industry” and within this scope, SMEs will be given digitization support up to ₺1 million.

Industry and Technology Minister Mustafa Varank shared the SME Development Support Program’s call for “Digitalization in the Manufacturing Industry” with the public in a written statement.

Stating that digital transformation in the manufacturing industry is among the focus areas of the 11th Development Plan and the Presidential Annual Program of 2021, Varank said, “We have put it among our goals to increase productivity with digital technologies, to produce products that are fully compliant with standards and thus to increase the competitive power of our SMEs.”

Reminding that the epidemic process changed all the ways of doing business and that many new concepts came into life during this period, Varank noted that they saw that digitalization was triggered with the epidemic in the manufacturing sector.

Emphasizing that SMEs have started to integrate digitalization into their business processes, Varank continued as follows:

“Our manufacturing industry has now better grasped how important digital transformation is. As KOSGEB, we make a new call with the theme of ‘Digitalization in Manufacturing Industry’ within the scope of the SME Development Support Program. With this call for the third time with this theme, we will support SMEs that develop smart digital technologies or use them in their manufacturing processes. We will continue to create a strong digital ecosystem by ensuring the domestic production and commercialization of digital technologies.”

“We created awareness”

Reminding that the first call with the theme “Digitalization in the Manufacturing Industry” was made in 2019, Varank stated that they approved the support of ₺71.5 million to 258 SMEs in total, and in the second call in 2020, they decided to benefit 396 SMEs from the support of ₺158 million in line with the increased awareness and demand.

Pointing out that with these calls, SMEs have raised awareness about digitalization in the industry, Varank gave the following information:

“As in the first two, in this new call, we will support our SMEs up to a total of ₺1 million, up to ₺300 thousand non-refundable and ₺700 thousand refundable. Thus, we will continue to increase the number of domestic and competent digital technology developer SMEs. We will receive applications by May 17th. Our SMEs can apply for the call via e-Devlet. We plan to announce the results of the call in July.”

Qualified personnel and software support limits increased

KOSGEB also took into account the feedback from SMEs in the first two calls. Based on the determination that the most important resource needed by SMEs that develop smart digital technologies is qualified personnel, it increased the upper limit of personnel support from ₺90 thousand to ₺300 thousand. The software support limit of SMEs, which will adapt smart digital technologies to their own business processes, has also been raised from ₺100 thousand to ₺300 thousand.

Up to 50% of the refundable support amount can be given as “early payment” in the Digitalization-themed call in the Manufacturing Industry. SMEs will be able to complete their projects within a minimum of 8 months and a maximum of 16 months within the scope of the call.

Project titles are “Processing Big Data with Analytical Methods and Using it in Manufacturing Industry”, “Internet of Things in Manufacturing Industry”, “Industrial Robot Technologies in Manufacturing Industry”, “Intelligent Sensor Technologies in Manufacturing Industry”, “Cyber-Physical Intelligent Factory Systems and Components Based on Artificial Intelligence”, “Cyber Security in Manufacturing Industry”, “Intelligent and Flexible Automation Systems in Manufacturing Industry” and “Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality in Manufacturing Industry”.

Source: AA / Translated by Irem Yildiz

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