The government plans to soon announce a set of measures to support the country’s mid-sized companies as part of an ongoing effort to boost South Korean exports, the Commerce Ministry said Wednesday.

A mid-sized enterprise is defined as a company with more than 300 employees and 100 million won ($89 million) in annual sales.

Such businesses have long been recognized but were legally identified for the first time in March 2011 in a revision to the industry development law. The law previously only recognized small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 300 employees and 100 million won in sales and large companies with more than 1,000 employees.

Currently, there are 1,291 businesses that fit the bill of a mid-sized firm, which account for only 0.04 percent of all companies in the country. They were, however, responsible for 8 percent of the country‘s total employment and 12.7 percent of exports in 2010, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.

“The country needs more globally competitive mid-sized firms to actively seek overseas markets and further boost its exports,” the ministry said in a press release.

The number of mid-sized companies grew more rapidly under the incumbent government as only 287 SMEs moved up to become mid-sized companies under the former administration, from 2003 through 2007.

From 2008 to 2010, there were 380 SMEs that became mid-size businesses.

Many small companies are reluctant to be designated mid-sized firms as the rise in status strips them of benefits currently offered to SMEs, without making them eligible for perks available to large conglomerates.

To remedy this apparent loophole, the government plans to devise a set of measures, to be announced within the first half of the year, that will specifically support mid-sized companies, the ministry said.

The measures will likely include increased financial support for research and development by mid-sized firms, it added.

In a related move to encourage more SMEs to become mid-sized or key exporting companies, President Lee Myung-bak held the first ever meeting with the chief executives of 81 mid-sized companies on Wednesday. (Yonhap News)