Jeonnam Province's 'Automotive Tuning Parts Leading Company Support Project' Achieves Visible Results

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] The Jeonnam Province's 'Customized Support Project for Leading Automotive Tuning Parts Companies' is showing significant results.

According to Jeonnam Province on the 6th, to foster the tuning industry, the province has been conducting competitions and evaluations from 2017 to this year to select competitive companies and supported a total of 20 billion KRW over four years as the second phase of the project.

The project funds are mainly provided in two areas: 'Technology Development (R&D)', which supports the development and commercialization of tuning parts products, and 'Commercialization Support', which assists marketing, patent support, and prototype production, with up to 500 million KRW per task.

In the first phase of the project conducted from 2017 to 2018, 10 billion KRW was provided to six companies including Friksa (Byeollyang-myeon, Suncheon City) and Korea R&D (Daema-myeon, Yeonggwang County), resulting in sales of 15.6 billion KRW, employment of 48 people, 7 patents, and 9 prototype productions.

In the second phase of the project, ongoing from last year to this year, 10 billion KRW was provided to six companies including W1 (Seokgok-myeon, Gokseong County) and Ivy Materials (Samho-eup, Yeongam County), achieving visible results such as sales of 13.3 billion KRW, employment of 161 people, 7 patents, and 8 prototype productions.

Upon completion of the project in the second half of this year, an additional 38 jobs and 2.8 billion KRW in sales are expected to increase.

Notably, the 12 companies that have participated in the project so far are receiving continuous management from the Jeonnam High-Performance Automotive Core Technology Research Center (entrusted to the Korea Automotive Technology Institute), and over the next five years, employment creation of 252 people and sales growth of approximately 195.8 billion KRW are anticipated.

A representative from Friksa stated, "Participating in this project led to successful innovative product development," adding, "By utilizing the systematic support program, we commercialized the developed products and laid the foundation to grow into a global brake specialist company in the long term."

A Jeonnam Province official said, "We will discover projects that contribute to the qualitative growth of companies so that the automotive tuning parts industry can establish itself as a representative industry of Jeonnam, and we will do our best in technology development and professional workforce training."

Meanwhile, the number of registered vehicles in Korea has exceeded 23.4 million, and currently, 17,725 people are employed in 7,671 tuning-related businesses.

The domestic tuning market has grown at an average annual rate of 4.18% from 3.4 trillion KRW in 2015 and is expected to reach 4.2 trillion KRW next year.

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