Managing Over 200 Key Economic Security Items... Expanding Target Industries to Defense, Space, Transportation, and More

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyunjung] The government announced on the 24th that it will expand the scope of key economic security items requiring focused management to sectors such as defense, space, and transportation. This decision was made based on the judgment that separate management is necessary due to the high import dependence on certain countries.

On the same day, the government held the 5th Economic Security Key Items Task Force (TF) meeting at the Government Seoul Office Building, chaired by Lee Okwon, the 1st Vice Minister of Strategy and Finance, to discuss the 'Economic Security Key Items Selection Plan' with this content. Following the discussion on selecting about 100 key economic security items on the 10th, this meeting aimed to select about 200 key items by expanding the target industries and scope.

Through this discussion, the government prepared a robust candidate pool of items in existing sectors such as leading industries, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, while also discovering key item candidates in new sectors including defense, space·transportation·small and medium enterprises·and energy. The government plans to finalize the designation of economic security key items soon by holding an external economic security strategy meeting after additional consultations.

For the top 20 priority management items such as magnesium, neodymium, tungsten, and urea water, the government will create customized measures for each item based on a 'menu' of response plans including diversification of import sources from third countries, expansion of domestic production bases, strategic stockpiling by the government and private sector, and securing substitutes.

Marking one month since the operation of the Early Warning System (EWS) that preemptively assesses supply and demand risk situations for about 4,000 items, the government reviewed monitoring performance, supply and demand status, and medium- to long-term stabilization plans for each item. Items related to manufacturing and leading industries, such as electrolytic manganese, are not expected to face immediate supply disruptions, but continuous monitoring of price volatility and other factors related to major countries' environmental regulations is deemed necessary.

Items related to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) showed some issues such as price increases and delivery delays of certain key components due to the global semiconductor supply shortage, but overall, there were no significant disruptions in the supply of the items under jurisdiction. Additionally, items related to pharmaceuticals, agricultural products, fisheries, forestry, and environment were confirmed to have stable supply. The government also stated that it continues to conduct inspections by overseas diplomatic missions on major items, considering trends related to China's Winter Olympics.

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