Gyeonggi-do's 'Business Registration Number Public Data Opening' to Expand Nationwide

[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] Gyeonggi-do, which is the first in the nation to implement the 'Business Registration Number Public Data Opening Project,' will expand it to government ministries and public institutions nationwide.

Gyeonggi-do recently announced on the 20th that the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution held a plenary meeting and designated leading institutions as a follow-up measure to the agenda of 'Providing Unopened Core Data (Business Registration Number),' instructing immediate promotion of the business registration number data opening.

The business registration number is a unique identifier for companies, and until now, there have been many misunderstandings considering it as personal information or corporate confidential information, making the opening of public data uncertain. However, with the Presidential Committee on the Fourth Industrial Revolution deciding to open it, a foundation has been laid for this project to spread nationwide.

Six institutions, including Gyeonggi-do, Incheon City, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, were selected as leading institutions for opening business registration number public data.

Earlier, since September 2018, following Gyeonggi-do Governor Lee Jae-myung's pledge that "not only the province's finances but also the data on finances belong to the residents," Gyeonggi-do became the first in the nation to open financial and contract data including business registration numbers.

The province has opened 6.13 million cases of contract data concluded since 2004 and expenditure data since 2015, including business registration numbers. Currently, six datasets, including local food certification status and workshop business status, are opened including business registration numbers.

Public data with added business registration numbers is expected to be used for developing corporate services related to closures, suspensions, relocations, and for innovative services targeting companies and small business owners through various combinations and analyses.

For example, when searching for individual businesses such as restaurants on portal sites, services can be provided that easily inform whether the business is temporarily closed or permanently closed.

Jeon Seung-hyun, head of the Data Policy Division of the province, said, "To utilize residents' data and create new businesses, we plan to proactively discover and open public data including business registration numbers through consultations with related officials," adding, "We will also check whether to additionally open business registration numbers in the data we currently hold."

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