The government plans to expand its assistance for companies run by women.  

Minister of SMEs and Startups Park Young-sun announced the plan on Friday during a meeting with a group of female CEOs, promising various support, including subsidies or training programs to help women start or grow companies. 

The ministry also vowed to double the size of a fund exclusively earmarked for female-run companies to 20 billion won this year and increase it to 90 billion won by next year. The ministry will also spend nine-point-two trillion won this year in assisting those firms in public procurement, up 700 billion won from last year. 

Park added there is a plan to advise every public company to explicitly ban discrimination against companies led by women from this year and increase female members of evaluation committees.