Korean to Provide Support to 11 Foreign Cities This Year

About 40 countries have submitted 111 applications for participation in the K-City Network Global Cooperation Program.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on April 27 that 39 countries submitted 111 applications for participation in the K-City Network Global Cooperation Program and the numbers increased by 16 and 31 compared to last year, respectively. The applications were made between Feb. 18 and April 20. The program for smart city construction is to combine South Korea’s smart city technologies with urban planning, traffic environment planning and other elements of smart city development.

This year, the South Korean government will help 11 foreign cities formulate smart city development plans and develop smart city solutions. In addition, it will help South Korean companies test and demonstrate their solutions in those cities. This year, Ghana, Nigeria, Morocco, Jordan, Iran, the United States, France and Spain submitted their first applications and Southeast Asian and Latin American countries submitted their applications again.

In the case of smart city development projects, 24 countries submitted 57 applications in total. For instance, Vietnam, the Philippines and Botswana requested citywide smart development roadmap formulation, Uzbekistan requested satellite city construction, and Paraguay requested industrial complex development.

As for the smart solution development programs, a total of 16 countries handed in 40 applications, including 13 in the traffic sector such as intelligent transportation system introduction, four in urban planning such as integrated urban management, five in environment such as smart park and systematic environmental management, and five in safety and security such as smart crime prevention.

In addition, 12 countries sent in 14 applications for smart solution demonstration. Those include three in traffic such as smart parking and smart streetlight control, four in smart water management, two in safety and security such as disaster control, and two in communications such as communications infrastructure establishment.

The ministry is going to hold an evaluation committee meeting with experts and announce the final selection result on June 23.

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