Pohang City Accelerates Establishment of Nation's First Advanced Manufacturing Incubation Center

Incubating Center Project Lays Foundation for Innovative Manufacturing Startups in Pohang

Mayor Lee: "Leading Regional Innovation and Fostering a Venture and Startup Ecosystem"

Pohang City is actively promoting the establishment of an Advanced Manufacturing Incubation Center to grow as a leading force in Startup Korea, in line with the President's plan to foster advanced manufacturing industries.

Bird's-eye view of the Advanced Manufacturing Incubating Center.

On the 20th, President Yoon Suk Yeol announced at a public forum held at Yeungnam University that he intends to nurture North Gyeongsang Province as a key player in Startup Korea, where young talent, startups, and venture companies come together.

He also revealed plans to establish a manufacturing incubation center in Pohang, North Gyeongsang, by 2025, which will provide manufacturing spaces and testing and processing facilities for initial mass production to support the growth of advanced manufacturing startups.

The manufacturing hardware sector requires a long time for technology commercialization, and even after creating prototypes, the scale-up process before mass production is essential. As a result, even technology-intensive small and medium-sized ventures tend to be neglected in investment, so it is necessary to build a system that can provide professional and systematic support beyond just financial assistance.

The Advanced Manufacturing Incubation Center is a public-private partnership project aimed at supporting and nurturing innovative growth of advanced companies in fields such as secondary batteries and bio. The plan is to attract 10 companies every three years and provide comprehensive support from process development to commercialization, helping local manufacturing entrepreneurs successfully commercialize their businesses.

The Advanced Manufacturing Incubation Center project was selected as a new project by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups last year and is currently being promoted jointly by Pohang City, North Gyeongsang Province, and POSCO. With a project budget of 25 billion KRW, construction is scheduled to begin in the second half of this year in Jigok-dong, with a two-story building and a total floor area of 3,968 square meters.

Pohang City is expected to serve as a hub for nurturing advanced manufacturing startups, as it is home to world-class industry-academia-research R&D infrastructure such as POSTECH, RIST, and the Pohang Light Source, as well as startup support institutions like Change Up Ground, the largest startup incubation space outside the Seoul metropolitan area.

Mayor Lee Kangdeok said, "With the establishment of the Advanced Manufacturing Incubation Center, we will emerge as a central hub for advanced manufacturing innovation," adding, "We will do our best to create a venture and startup ecosystem that can lead the region's innovative growth."

Pohang City laid the foundation for new growth industries by being designated as a specialized secondary battery complex last year and recently as an Opportunity Development Zone. The city plans to leap forward as a new growth hub in the local era by building an industrial ecosystem centered on key new growth industries such as secondary batteries, hydrogen, and bio.

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