Pohang, the Optimal Site for Marine Industry Development, Steadily Building an Ecosystem Leading the New Marine Era

Promotion of Marine Bio, Smart Aquaculture, and Marine Industry R&D

Selected for the Establishment Project of the 'Marine Biomedical Demonstration Research Center'

Synergy with Research-Oriented Medical School as an 'Industry-Academia-Resear

Pohang City is steadily establishing a new industrial ecosystem to lead the new marine era as an optimal location for fostering innovative marine industries such as marine bio and smart aquaculture, which are attracting attention as next-generation high value-added industries.

Aerial view of Pohang Smart Aquaculture Cluster.

The marine bio industry refers to an industry that produces useful products and services for humanity by utilizing raw materials extracted from marine organisms. Among the bioindustries, which are recognized as a national core strategic industry with growth potential, it is especially regarded as a future industry with significant growth prospects.

At the ‘28th Sea Day’ commemorative ceremony held on the 31st of last month at Gyeongju Expo Park, Professor Cha Hyung-jun of POSTECH received the Red Clove Order of Military Merit for securing the world's first technology to mass-produce innovative bio-adhesive materials using the excellent adhesive ability of mussels. Research utilizing marine resources continues in the region.

With its strategic asset of the sea facing the East Sea and the concentration of world-class research-focused institutions such as POSTECH, Pohang City is making every effort to expand various infrastructures utilizing the sea and create a new industrial ecosystem to secure a leading position in the marine industry.

First, Pohang City has been selected for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ ‘Marine Biomedical Demonstration Research Center’ project and plans to invest a total of 30 billion KRW by 2027 to establish the center.

The center is expected to contribute to strengthening South Korea’s global competitiveness in the bio-health industry as the ‘East Sea Marine Bio Research Hub’ through convergence R&D for advancing the marine bio industry and developing high value-added products, as well as supporting the commercialization of enterprises.

In particular, as a hub for industry-academia-research-hospital (industry, university, research institute, hospital) linked research and networks, synergy effects with the research-oriented medical school, which Pohang City is focusing on promoting, are also anticipated through convergence research with the medical and healthcare fields and research and demonstration of bio-medical products.

Alongside this, the ‘Advanced Marine Industry R&D Center,’ being developed with an investment of 19.7 billion KRW in the Songdo Beach area of Pohang, is also scheduled for completion early next year.

Selected through the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s economic base-type urban New Deal project competition, the R&D center will serve as a base for fostering new marine industries and a key facility in the Pohang Port Old Port urban regeneration New Deal project. Once the R&D center opens, it will be utilized as a hub not only for technology development in advanced marine industries but also for fostering the marine leisure industry, revitalizing related startups, and building marine tourism infrastructure, thereby further strengthening Pohang’s function as a marine city.

The city was also selected for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries’ ‘Smart Aquaculture Cluster’ project, which will present the ‘smart future of marine fisheries.’ It will invest 40 billion KRW by 2024 to develop the cluster in the Janggi-myeon area. This project involves creating a cutting-edge aquaculture cluster incorporating Korea’s circular filtration aquaculture system (K-RAS), ICT (Information and Communication Technology), AI, and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies.

To localize salmon, which is currently entirely dependent on imports, a salmon smart aquaculture-based test facility (testbed) covering approximately 28,000 square meters will be established. Once the salmon aquaculture cluster, encompassing salmon farming, processing facilities, and feed factories, is completed, Pohang is expected to establish itself as a global leading city in advanced aquaculture.

Mayor Lee Kang-deok emphasized, “The added value of the marine industry is rapidly increasing worldwide, and the potential of new marine industries utilizing the sea is limitless. We will do our best to make innovative marine industry development a stepping stone for national economic advancement by continuously investing and supporting it as a new future growth engine.”

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