Government to Invest 150 Billion KRW in 'Smart Specialization Infrastructure' to Revitalize Local Economies

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Haeyoung] The government will support 150 billion KRW for the 'Smart Specialization Infrastructure Construction' project, which aims to strengthen regional innovation resources and capabilities to promote corporate innovation activities, thereby contributing to the competitiveness of regional industries and the revitalization of the regional economy.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held a briefing session titled '2023 New Project Selection Guide and Next Follow-up Project Planning Direction' on the 17th at EL Tower in Seoul, containing this information.

This briefing was organized to provide guidance on the selection of the 4th and final new projects of the Smart Specialization Infrastructure Construction project, which started in 2020, and to share and collect opinions on the planning direction of follow-up projects reflecting super-regional units. Notably, this time, in addition to the existing metropolitan area projects, new super-regional unit projects based on regional cooperation were introduced. Through this, infrastructure will be supported for various regional projects being promoted on a super-regional scale, and the planning completeness of follow-up projects to be carried out from 2024 to 2032 will be enhanced.

So far, since 2020, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has selected 77 new projects in three rounds to advance and diversify regional industries. With the additional selection of 23 projects this time, a total of 100 projects worth 672 billion KRW in national funding will be supported.

Currently, a total of 267 regional innovation institutions are carrying out the Smart Specialization Infrastructure Construction project, supporting regional companies with prototypes and testing and evaluation.

Kim Hyuncheol, Director of Regional Economic Policy at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, stated, "The regional industry infrastructure construction project needs to prioritize competitive projects that cooperate on a super-regional scale for core future industry infrastructures such as carbon neutrality, virtual reality (VR), and big data." He added, "We ask local governments to actively cooperate so that this can evolve into a strategic infrastructure construction project more strongly linked with strategic industries that local governments aim to foster."

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