Plan Lacks Consideration on Manufacturing Development
The South Korean government released a digital and green economy development plan on July 14. According to the plan, a total of 160 trillion won will be invested until 2025 so that the economy, society and culture of South Korea can be highly digitized.
The plan is broadly divided into Digital New Deal, Green New Deal and social and employment safety net enhancement.
In the Digital New Deal part, the government will invest 58.2 trillion won to create 903,000 jobs. Specifically, it is going to share 142,000 pieces of public data so that data dams can be built and the data, network and artificial intelligence industries can further grow. In addition, 30 industry-specific big data platforms will be established and vouchers for access to public data will be provided for 8,400 companies.
5G convergence development projects will be underway for 195 immersive digital contents related to culture, sports, tourism, and so on, 160 smart museums and exhibition centers based on information and communications technology, and R&D of Level 4 self-driving cars and self-navigating ships. 12,000 smart factories will be built, 17 AI-based home services such as indoor air purification will be popularized, and AI solution vouchers will be provided for 3,400 non-large companies.
High-performance Wi-Fi will become available at every primary and secondary school while 200,000 old desktops and laptops are replaced and 240,000 tablet PCs are provided for educational purposes. 18 smart hospitals will provide remote medical treatment and precision diagnosis will be provided to cover the 12 diseases including lung cancer and diabetes. Social overhead capital and infrastructure management systems will be digitized along with urban and industrial spaces and freight logistics systems.
As for the Green New Deal, 230,000 buildings such as public rental houses, pre-kindergartens and community health centers will be turned into those based on renewable energy. In this part of the plan, 73.4 trillion won will be invested for five years to come so 659,000 jobs can be created. Also, 25 smart green cities will be established and 1.13 million electric vehicles will be supplied along with 200,000 hydrogen vehicles.
When it comes to the safety net enhancement, a budget of 28.4 trillion won will be executed for 339,000 new jobs. The number of employment insurance subscribers is planned to be increased from 13.67 million to 21 million, more assistance for those without a job will be implemented next year, and 12.2 trillion won will be spent on employment stabilization.
Experts point out that the plan lacks consideration of how to further develop the manufacturing sector. “The plan is lopsided to the digital and service industries in spite of the fact that manufacturing is the largest part of the South Korean economy,” one of them explained, adding, “The government needs to keep in mind that those industries’ job creation effects are smaller than those of the manufacturing sector.”