Jeju Technopark Celebrates 10th Anniversary of Establishment

Commitment to the Role of Convergent Technology Leading Institutions for Fostering Jeju-Type Small Giants
Commemorative Event Canceled Due to COVID-19 Spread, 17 Quarantine Agencies Share 'Wimun Rice Cake' to Mark the Occasion

Jeju Technopark. Photo by Jeju Province

[Jeju=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Chang-won] Jeju Technopark (Director Tae Seong-gil, hereinafter JTP) celebrated its 10th anniversary on the 1st.

JTP was jointly established in 2010 by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and Jeju Special Self-Governing Province to build a cooperation system among industry, academia, research, and government and to strengthen the competitiveness of Jeju's regional industries through technological innovation.

So far, JTP has played a pivotal role in laying the foundation for the growth of Jeju's innovative startups, post-startup growth companies, and growth-driven innovative companies through various projects such as material research and technology development needed by companies, commercialization support, marketing, and workforce training.

Until 2019, the cumulative new employment performance supported by regional industry promotion projects reached 2,642 people, growing at an annual rate of 35.2%, with 92% of the new employment being regular positions.

The commercialization sales of regional companies through support projects amounted to a cumulative 332.9 billion KRW, growing at an annual rate of 30%, with about 26% of sales attributed to support projects.

For regional industry promotion projects for local companies, a total of 741 tasks and a budget of 265 billion KRW were supported. Despite difficulties in winning national direct support project competitions, JTP has strengthened support so that local companies can benefit by actively discovering competitive projects, with an average annual increase of 11.9% in supported projects and 13.5% in support budgets.

In particular, it is evaluated that corporate support achievements were remarkable in the fields strategically nurtured by Jeju Special Self-Governing Province, such as clean health food, intelligent tourism content, smart grid, and cosmetics beauty.

Through industry-academia-research-government cooperative R&D to preoccupy the knowledge ecosystem, JTP has supported securing 1,118 intellectual property rights. The number of intellectual property rights secured has grown from around 30 in the early days to an average of 220 in the past four years, showing an annual growth rate of 20.7%.

Above all, the fact that JTP has substantially established the function of a Jeju resource and technology convergence platform that can creatively nurture Jeju's future value is expected to act as an opportunity to firmly root the Jeju economic ecosystem.

Recently, JTP received an excellent grade in the management performance evaluation by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and recorded a second-grade rating for two consecutive years in the Integrity Evaluation by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. The budget scale is in the 80 billion KRW range.

JTP's future tasks include improving insufficient functions to lead technological innovation of small and medium enterprises, which account for over 90% of Jeju's manufacturing industry and exceed the 4% limit of Jeju manufacturing.

Director Tae Seong-gil promised, "The growth of Jeju's economy starts with strengthening the competitiveness of Jeju companies, and the sustainable growth of companies is the responsibility of Jeju Technopark," adding, "We will manage 3,000 manufacturing companies in Jeju, foster 300 core companies, and establish a foundation for the stock market listing of 3 companies, implementing the 3·3·3 strategy."

Meanwhile, due to the severe spread of COVID-19, JTP canceled face-to-face events such as the 10th anniversary ceremony and instead visited 17 major quarantine-related organizations in the province at the forefront of quarantine efforts to deliver 'comfort rice cakes' amid difficult circumstances.

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