South Korea's constitutional court said Monday that it deemed the impeachment notice delivered to President Yoon Suk-yeol, who repeatedly defied the delivery, and plans to hold the first preliminary hearing over Yoon's impeachment on Friday as scheduled.
South Korea's corruption investigative body said Monday that impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol defied its second request to appear for questioning over his martial law imposition.
The Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) said in a short notice that both the presidential office and residence had yet to receive the second request by mail and e-mail to appear on December 25 for questioning, which was sent on December 20.
Yoon reportedly had yet to submit documents for the appointment of his defense counsel.
The joint investigation unit, composed of the CIO, the police and the defense ministry's investigation headquarters, will allegedly review whether to send the third request for questioning or seek an arrest warrant.
Yoon said in a televised address on Dec 12 that he would not avoid his legal and political responsibility for the martial law that was declared by Yoon on the night of Dec 3 but was revoked by the National Assembly hours later.
The impeachment motion against Yoon was passed in the National Assembly on Dec 14 and was delivered to the constitutional court to deliberate it for up to 180 days, during which Yoon's presidential power will be suspended.
S Korea's constitutional court deems Yoon's impeachment notice delivered
China has seen the rise of 14,600 "little giant" enterprises and over 140,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that produce novel and unique products by resorting to special and sophisticated technologies, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at a press conference in Beijing on Monday.
The "little giant" enterprises are characterized by active intellectual property output and a leading density of invention patents, driven by a series of supportive policies.
At present, "little giant" enterprises that use special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products hold 327,400 invention patents, with an average of 22.3 patents per enterprise, accounting for 11 percent of the total invention patents held by all enterprises in the country.
These enterprises have an average of 364 invention patents per 1,000 R and D personnel, and 72.7 invention patents per 100 million yuan of R and D expenditure.
"'Little giant' enterprises that use special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products have an average of three patent assignments per enterprise, with 37.1 percent of them securing financing through patent pledges. This reflects an improvement in patent operations and conversion capabilities," said Shang Chao, deputy director of Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Bureau of the MIIT.
To effectively leverage the financing function of intellectual property and broaden the financing channels for technology-based enterprises, the People's Bank of China has encouraged financial institutions to establish an enterprise innovation capability evaluation system with intellectual property as a core indicator.
The evaluation results are used as an important reference for credit access and ratings, promoting financial services to cover more technology-based SMEs.
So far, a total of 1,492 technology-based SMEs in their startup and growth stages have received initial loans amounting to 15.1 billion yuan (about 2.07 billion U.S. dollars).
"A sound intellectual property pledge financing risk protection system has been established, introducing external credit enhancement measures such as financing guarantees and government risk compensation funds to reasonably share and diversify risks. As of the end of October, the loan approval rates for technology-based SMEs and enterprises that use special and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products were 46.5 percent and 69.6 percent, respectively, maintaining steady growth for three consecutive years," said Yu Jian, deputy director of the Credit Market Department, People's Bank of China.
Favorable polices foster development of 'little giant' enterprises
