Government Surprised by Diesel Exhaust Fluid Shortage, Establishes 'Supply Chain Special Committee' Under SoBujang Commission

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Haeyoung] Amid the shortage crisis of urea solution, the government has established a 'Global Value Chain (GVC) Restructuring Response Special Committee' composed of private experts under the 'Committee for Strengthening Competitiveness of Materials, Parts, and Equipment (SoBuJang),' the inter-ministerial control tower for materials, parts, and equipment.

On the 17th, the government held the 8th meeting of the SoBuJang Competitiveness Enhancement Committee at the Government Seoul Office, where it discussed and finalized a total of five agenda items, including this matter.

The GVC Special Committee is chaired by Joo Hyun, President of the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, and includes leading national and private think tank experts in the field of industrial policy. The committee will review trends in global supply chain restructuring, major countries' response strategies, and Korea's response direction, and report these to the Competitiveness Committee to support the government's supply chain policy formulation.

The government also finalized the 'SoBuJang Future Leading Research and Development (R&D) Promotion Plan.' Focusing on 65 future-leading items, it will newly select about 20 future technology research labs in the materials field annually, expanding to 100 labs by 2025. For future technology research labs that achieve excellent results, a 'renewable R&D' system will be introduced to allow long-term research for up to eight years.

Furthermore, priority support will be given to the development of common elemental technologies for 185 core SoBuJang R&D items and future-leading items, and support for technology development related to carbon neutrality, GVC restructuring, and digital transformation will be strengthened. To this end, the government plans to newly select 10 to 15 national core materials research groups annually, increasing to 100 groups by 2025.

A new digital transformation project will also be launched that utilizes intelligent robots in the new material development process to reduce the duration and cost of R&D by more than 50% compared to existing methods with minimal research personnel.

In addition, the government will promote new preliminary feasibility study (PFS) projects such as 'Nano Convergence 2030' and 'Establishment of Extreme Materials Demonstration Research Infrastructure,' which support the commercialization of original technology R&D outcomes.

Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Moon Seungwook stated, "Public interest and concern about establishing a safe SoBuJang supply chain are greater than ever," adding, "We will thoroughly review the supply chains of items essential to citizens' lives and highly dependent on overseas sources, from raw materials to finished products, and strengthen crisis response capabilities by preparing manuals for emergency situations."

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