Nine Trillion
The Korean government will invest 9 trillion won (US$8.1 billion) in the ICT industry for the next five years, in order to reach 240 trillion won (US$217.9 billion) in industry output and US$210 billion in exports by 2020. The idea is to boost the development of the sector, with China threatening Korea’s dominance in the fields of mobile phones, semiconductors, displays, and other core IT competencies.
The Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning unveiled its K-ICT Strategy on March 25 at the Pangyo Global R&D Center in Gyeonggi Province.
According to its plan, 17 projects constituting four core sectors for industrial innovation, large-scale investment in convergence services, export market diversification, and software sector development are to be underway for the enhancement of the competitiveness of the industry. In particular, with regard to the investment in convergence services, a total of 2.1 trillion won (US$1.9 billion) will be spent until 2019 on major ICT convergence programs in the education, medical, tourism, city management, energy, and transportation sectors.
At the same time, the government will work on strategic export item packages to penetrate emerging markets, including China, while organizing global consortia for market-specific assistance. 5G telecoms technology and Internet of Things (IoT) services will be unveiled at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to this end.
The government is also planning to expand its support in the nine industries of software, IoT, cloud computing, information security, 5G telecom, UHD, digital content, smart devices, and big data. The ministry and the ICT Strategy Committee set up an inter-ministerial and private-public council for the purpose.