Koo Yoon-chul, Deputy Minister of Economy and Finance, "Continuous Monitoring of SoBuJang R&D Investment... Government Will Generously Support Budget"

Koo Yoon-chul, 2nd Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance. (File photo)

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] Koo Yoon-cheol, the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, stated on the 9th, "We plan to continuously monitor whether investments in the materials, parts, and equipment sectors are being promoted in the right direction and focus on creating an unshakable industrial ecosystem."

On this day, Vice Minister Koo presided over a video conference to review the progress of materials, parts, and equipment research and development (R&D). Officials from the Ministry of Science and ICT, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and Ministry of SMEs and Startups attended the meeting.

Vice Minister Koo emphasized, "To become a resilient industrial powerhouse, it is crucial to minimize uncertainties across the industry, such as last year's export restrictions by Japan. To achieve this, securing a supply safety net through visible outcomes of materials, parts, and equipment R&D and establishing a collaborative system among ministries and projects are essential."

In particular, Vice Minister Koo urged the relevant ministries to concentrate their capabilities on swiftly completing R&D for the top 20 items reflected in last year's supplementary budget and creating a virtuous cycle that leads to actual commercialization. He also clearly stated that the government will generously support the necessary R&D budget to achieve the technology development roadmap for the 80 items requiring a mid- to long-term strategic perspective.

The participants in the meeting agreed that collaboration among the relevant ministries is indispensable to establish a robust materials, parts, and equipment ecosystem.

They also discussed specific collaborative investment plans. If foundational core technologies have already been secured, basic and core R&D will be led by the Ministry of Science and ICT, commercialization R&D by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and company-tailored R&D by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, strengthening a 'relay R&D' system to connect these stages. In cases where foundational technology is somewhat lacking, the ministries agreed to share the final goals and actively promote 'running together R&D,' which simultaneously pursues basic and applied research.

Additionally, to minimize inefficiencies caused by overlapping investments in equipment construction projects for performance and testing evaluation, the ministries agreed to clearly coordinate their roles during the budget allocation process.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.