Pohang Battery Regulatory Free Zone Achieves National First with Four Consecutive Excellent Zone Designations

Ahead of the Battery Special Zone Ending on August 8, Wrapping Up the 4-Year Journey with a Successful Finish

Challenging Designation as a Global Innovation Zone Based on 4 Years of Achievements, Advancing as a Global Battery Leading City

The Pohang Next-Generation Battery Recycling Regulatory Free Zone has achieved the remarkable feat of being designated as an excellent special zone for four consecutive years, uniquely standing out nationwide.

Completion ceremony of the Secondary Battery Integrated Management Center held in October 2021.

According to Pohang City on the 2nd, the Pohang Battery Special Zone has created outstanding results among 29 special zones nationwide, being recognized as an exemplary case of a regulatory free zone and designated as an excellent special zone for four consecutive years.

The city, together with Gyeongbuk Province, applied for and was designated as a next-generation battery recycling regulatory free zone in 2019 to address the difficulty in industrializing used batteries due to the law not keeping pace with the rapid technological advancements in batteries at that time by granting regulatory exemptions for demonstration.

Since the designation of the special zone, approximately 2 trillion KRW in corporate investment has been made, and investments totaling 12 trillion KRW are confirmed by 2027. This has become an opportunity for the resilience that once led Korea's industrialization through steel production to be revived as battery patriotism (電池報國) through secondary batteries.

Pohang City is building a full-cycle ecosystem producing everything from materials to components by attracting investments from leading companies such as EcoPro, POSCO Future M, and GS Construction, as well as small and medium enterprises like SoluM, Mirae Ceratech, and Haedong Engineering.

Additionally, due to large-scale corporate investments, the Blue Valley National Industrial Complex, which had a sales rate of only 1%, has sold out its first-phase sites, creating 2,000 new jobs and injecting new vitality into the local economy, which had been stagnant due to the downturn in the steel industry.

Along with this, based on the special zone demonstrations, ten related laws including performance evaluation, grading, sales, reuse, and recycling standards for used batteries have been revised by the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, laying the foundation for revitalizing the used battery industry.

During the process of revising laws and systems, a consensus was reached on the need for a hub space to support additional demonstrations and commercialization of used batteries. Accordingly, together with Gyeongbuk Province, the city boldly invested 10.7 billion KRW of local funds to establish and operate the Secondary Battery Comprehensive Management Center since 2021.

The center serves as a future waste resource collection hub for the Yeongnam region and has grown into a cradle for developing new products and services by leasing office space at low cost to battery-related startups and small and medium enterprises.

Furthermore, to continue the achievements of the Battery Special Zone, the city has attracted numerous government policy projects from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, creating a sustainable growth foundation for the secondary battery industry.

By attracting the Ministry of Environment’s Used Battery Resource Circulation Cluster and Inline Automatic Evaluation Center projects, construction will begin sequentially from 2024, serving as a national control tower for used battery policies.

In addition, Pohang was selected for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s project to establish a commercialization base for high-safety, affordable lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, adding the LFP battery industry foundation to the reuse and recycling infrastructure of the currently operating Secondary Battery Comprehensive Management Center, promoting diversification of the material portfolio.

Building on the achievements of this battery regulatory free zone, Pohang is set to make a new leap as a global battery leading city through designation as a national advanced strategic industrial complex for secondary batteries.

Ahead of the expiration of the existing Battery Special Zone on the 8th, Pohang City plans to challenge the Battery Global Innovation Zone, which is being prepared as an extension, aiming to create an ecosystem where global companies can emerge locally.

Mayor Lee Kang-deok emphasized, “We will establish investment attraction infrastructure such as a global innovation zone, opportunity development zone, and corporate innovation park linked with the secondary battery specialized complex to create a secondary battery mega cluster,” adding, “We will create a new model of balanced regional development with the spirit of battery patriotism.”

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