"Let's Create a Fair SW Market" Full-Scale Revision of Subordinate Legislation for the SW Promotion Act Begins

First Discussion on Subordinate Legislation Amendments

[Asia Economy Reporter Seol Gina Jo] The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the afternoon of the 30th that it held the 1st sector-specific forum on creating a fair software market environment with software associations, related experts, and others at the Korea Science and Technology Center located in Gangnam, Seoul, to discuss follow-up measures for the Software Promotion Act.

This forum is a follow-up to the software association meeting chaired by the 2nd Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 17th and is the first meeting of a series of sector-specific discussions to explore subordinate legislation of the Software Promotion Act and future policy directions.

The discussion topic was the creation of a fair software market environment, which is of greatest interest to the industry. Attendees included practical workers from over 20 software associations such as the Korea Software Industry Association, Korea IT Service Industry Association, and Korea Commercial Software Association, as well as academia and legal experts.

The forum focused intensively on improving unreasonable task change practices, activating timely ordering in the software industry, establishing fair pricing, and promoting remote development.

Regarding task changes, opinions were raised that the task review committee, newly introduced, should clarify the scope of tasks from the beginning through its review procedures and strengthen task confirmation and change procedures by mandating adjustments to project amount and duration in case of unavoidable task changes. Additionally, there was a strong call to guarantee appropriate project periods to contractors by preparing the next year's orders in advance from the previous year to ensure timely ordering. Along with this, the progress of initiatives for fair pricing, such as increasing function point unit prices and maintenance fees, was also shared.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to continuously hold four sector-specific forums on ▲creating a fair SW market environment ▲human resource development and R&D ▲SW company growth and investment activation ▲regional SW revitalization to gather diverse opinions from industry and experts for the revision of subordinate legislation and future policy directions following the full revision of the Software Promotion Act scheduled for implementation in December. Based on this, an implementation plan and subordinate legislation will be prepared and announced for legislative notice in August.

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