Pohang City Innovates New Growth Future Industries... Enhances Global Urban Competitiveness

Visible Progress in Diversifying and Fostering Three Major New Industries: Secondary Batteries, Hydrogen, and Bio

Mayor Lee Gang-deok: "Fostering New Growth Industries to Leap into a Globally Competitive City"

Pohang City is accelerating its efforts to become a hub of advanced industries with global competitiveness, achieving visible results in industrial diversification by fostering three major new industries?secondary batteries, hydrogen, and bio?as future growth engines.

'Battery Leading City Pohang International Conference' held on November 22 at the POSCO International Hall international conference room. Provided by Pohang City

Once dominated solely by the steel industry, Pohang has made remarkable progress in advanced strategic industries, being consecutively designated as a specialized complex for secondary batteries last year, a bio-specialized complex in June this year, and a hydrogen-specialized complex in November.

The share of the secondary battery industry in regional exports surged from 1% in 2015 to 38.5% last year. As a result, this year Pohang was designated as the largest Opportunity Development Zone in the nation, laying the foundation to leap beyond Korea to become the world’s top city for battery materials.

Additionally, based on excellent bio-industry research infrastructure such as Korea’s only 3rd and 4th generation synchrotron accelerators, cryo-electron microscopes, and POSTECH, a world-class research-oriented university, Pohang achieved the great feat of being selected as a bio-specialized complex.

Furthermore, following the preliminary feasibility study approval for the hydrogen fuel cell cluster and this year’s designation as the nation’s first hydrogen-specialized complex, Pohang has secured an opportunity to lead the global energy market in the power generation hydrogen fuel cell sector.

Building on these opportunities, Pohang City plans to further dedicate itself next year to innovating new growth future industries and advancing as an advanced innovation city with global urban competitiveness.

In the secondary battery sector, Pohang will establish the Secondary Battery Open Innovation Center and the National Advanced Strategic Industry Promotion Institute to secure a technological super-gap, creating a comprehensive development hub where research, demonstration, venture and startup cultivation, and talent development all take place.

It will also promote the designation of a special zone for recycling core components from used electric vehicles and a global innovation zone for eco-friendly electric fishing boats, while establishing a safety management system to prevent battery fires?the main cause of the electric vehicle chasm?to encourage secondary battery companies to settle stably in the region.

In the bio sector, Pohang will develop an innovative biomedical city linked to the bio-specialized complex.

By expanding the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Advanced Complex Medical District, the bio-specialized complex will be upgraded to secure global technological competitiveness, and plans are underway to create a green bio-industry development zone and a startup cluster.

Moreover, Pohang aims to preempt the core technologies of advanced bio industries, a game-changer among the 12 national strategic technologies, and establish a network involving local companies, universities, research institutes, and hospitals to secure leadership in bio-science and technology.

In the hydrogen sector, the designation of the specialized complex will serve as a foundation to actively respond to the domestic Distributed Energy Act enforcement, the EU’s carbon border tax, and the full-scale implementation of RE100, establishing an eco-friendly renewable energy production base.

In addition to the three new growth industries, the city plans to create an AI and digital ecosystem as a new regional growth engine, aiming to make Pohang a mecca of the AI industry.

Through a dedicated organization overseeing AI operations, Pohang will build a control tower capable of collaborating with universities and companies to swiftly advance the transition to a smart city, while promoting AI and digital transformation across all sectors in Pohang to accelerate the spread of the AI ecosystem.

Mayor Lee Kang-deok said, “Thanks to the citizens’ unwavering interest and support, we were able to achieve meaningful results in new growth industries this year. Next year, we will devote ourselves to fostering new growth industries that will reshape Pohang’s future economic map, making every effort to establish Pohang as a globally competitive city.”

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