Gyeongbuk Province Attracts Content Business Incubation Center... "Establishing Andong-Gyeongju-Gumi Triangle Belt"

A view of the Gyeongsangbuk-do Provincial Government Office building.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Dong-wook] Gyeongsangbuk-do announced on the 19th that it has been finally selected for the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's public project, the '2020 Regional Hub-type Content Enterprise Incubation Center Construction Project.'

Through this project, jointly promoted with Gumi City, Gyeongbuk Content Agency, and D-Lab Ventures, a hub-type enterprise incubation center for content industry agglomeration will be established with a project budget of 19 billion KRW (8.8 billion KRW national funds, 10.2 billion KRW local funds) from this year until 2025.

First, in Gumi, the number one youth city in Gyeongbuk, 11 billion KRW will be invested by February next year to build content industry infrastructure such as company office spaces (for 45 companies), test beds, networking spaces, and exhibition, experience, and sales zones in a 4,440㎡ building (1 basement floor, 8 above-ground floors).

Additionally, after the infrastructure is established, 8 billion KRW will be invested over four years to focus on supporting startups, content development, and domestic and international marketing support for content companies' startups and growth. The goal is to discover 90 startups, support 35 companies for global expansion, and create 1,000 direct and indirect jobs.

According to Gyeongbuk Province's own analysis, the rich content resources in Gyeongbuk, technology infrastructure such as VR and holograms, excellent industry-academia-research collaboration systems, enterprise support infrastructure, optimized business environment and accessibility for content, and strong policy will were major strengths in attracting this incubation center. The fund investment program linked with D-Lab Ventures, Gyeongbuk's first venture capital (which formed a 27.5 billion KRW venture fund), was also highly praised as a differentiating factor.

Gyeongbuk Province expects that the attraction of this incubation center will accelerate the establishment of a content triangle belt based on Andong, Gyeongju, and Gumi.

The northern region including Andong and Mungyeong will be specialized as a story content hub for characters and animation; the southeastern region including Gyeongju and Gyeongsan will be a new Hallyu content hub for games, e-sports, comics, webtoons, and K-pop; and the western region including Gumi will be specialized as a new content business hub integrating 4th industrial technologies such as VR and ICT, expanding content infrastructure accordingly.

Gyeongbuk Province plans to expand various content enterprise support policies such as expanding national and provincial content development projects, policy fund support, and technology development support, using the establishment of the incubation center as a starting signal to foster the content industry as a new growth engine. Through this, they will pursue a two-track strategy of supporting local content companies' startups and growth and attracting companies from the metropolitan area to create youth jobs and prevent the outflow of young population.

Governor Lee Cheol-woo expressed strong enthusiasm, saying, “Gyeongbuk has the most world heritage sites nationwide and is the top region for designated cultural assets, providing abundant original content sources. Through the construction of the incubation center, we will create new added value by combining the region’s rich content resources with advanced technology, and we will spare no support to bring a new wave of youth job creation and enterprise growth to the region, which has been stagnated due to COVID-19.”

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