One Year Since Regulatory Free Zone Policy Implementation... Gyeongbuk Province Achieves 'Greatest Success' in Attracting Investment from GS Construction

Ministry of SMEs and Startups Awards 'Excellent Evaluation' to Gyeongbuk Next-Generation Battery Recycling Special Zone

The photo shows the 'Next-Generation Battery Pohang Forum 2019 for the Activation of the Battery Regulatory Free Zone' held on November 18 last year in the main conference room of Pohang City Hall, Gyeongbuk.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Dongwook Park] Gyeongsangbuk-do received an 'Excellent' rating in the operational performance evaluation conducted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups on the first anniversary of the implementation of the Regulatory Free Zone policy.

According to Gyeongbuk Province on the 20th, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced the results of the Regulatory Free Zone operational performance evaluation on May 18th, selecting the 'Gyeongbuk Next-Generation Battery Recycling Regulatory Free Zone' along with the Busan Blockchain Free Zone as 'Excellent' and presenting them as exemplary cases. Since July last year, a total of seven locations including Gyeongbuk were designated as the first Regulatory Free Zones, and the operation continues until the end of next month.

The Gyeongbuk Battery Recycling Free Zone initially did not attract much attention, but this January, the President personally attended the GS Construction 100 billion KRW investment agreement ceremony, leading to over 1 trillion KRW in direct and indirect investments and the creation of 122 new jobs within the free zone companies, drawing nationwide interest.

The Gyeongbuk Free Zone is evaluated as a case that achieved 120% of the policy goals, considering that the purpose of the Regulatory Free Zone policy is to foster new industries through regulatory innovation and revitalize the regional economy.

This operational performance evaluation was conducted based on indicators such as ▲regional economic revitalization (comparison of sales and export increases, number of new employees) and ▲local governments' efforts to achieve policy goals. Considering it has been only one year since the free zone operation, emphasis was placed on the financial and administrative efforts of local governments.

The Gyeongbuk Regulatory Free Zone is known to have received high scores evenly in both 'regional economic revitalization' and 'local government efforts' categories.

In the 'regional economic revitalization' category, in addition to the GS Construction 100 billion KRW investment agreement, attention was drawn to attracting a total investment of 1.3734 trillion KRW, including ▲the groundbreaking of the EcoProGEM battery recycling plant worth 70 billion KRW ▲PM Grow's 7 billion KRW investment agreement ▲New Tech LIB's 13 billion KRW investment agreement.

In the 'local government efforts' category, Gyeongbuk was the first nationwide to establish a Regulatory Innovation Promotion Center (Gyeongbuk Technopark in August 2019) and has been highly rated for sparing no budget support, such as newly promoting the 'Regulatory Sandbox Consulting Support Project' as a business for next year.

Jang Sang-gil, Director of the Science and Industry Bureau of Gyeongbuk Province, pledged, "In connection with the free zone project, with the preliminary feasibility study passing for the 'Accelerator-Based Next-Generation Battery Park Construction' project in the second half of this year, we will make Gyeongbuk's battery industry a policy brand."

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