Suncheon City Benchmarks Leading Cities in Culture and Bio Industries

"The Answer Lies On Site"... Policy Tour of Namwon, Bucheon, and Seoul
Noh Gwankyu: "Detailing Practical Strategies for Future Industries"

Noh Gwankyu, mayor of Suncheon, and his party are visiting and touring the Namwon Bioindustry Research Institute. Provided by Suncheon City

Suncheon City in South Jeolla Province is taking proactive steps to foster two key pillars: cultural content and the bio industry. Mayor Noh Gwankyu and other city officials embarked on a two-day benchmarking tour from May 16 to 17, visiting leading cities in Korea’s cultural and bio industries.

Through this policy tour, which connects Namwon, Bucheon, and Seoul, they aimed to examine the "details of successful models" and to devise an industrial ecosystem that can be implemented in Suncheon’s own way.

The first stop was the Namwon Bioindustry Research Institute. This institute is a core organization leading the local bio industry by utilizing biological resources from the Jirisan region to develop functional cosmetics, supporting everything from corporate growth and exports to professional workforce training. During the visit, the city confirmed an "end-to-end structure" enabled by organic collaboration among local governments, research institutes, and companies, covering product development, commercialization, and market entry.

After Namwon, Suncheon officials moved on to the Korea Manhwa Contents Agency in Bucheon. This agency provides policy support for Korea’s comic industry and comprehensively promotes talent development, content distribution, industrialization, and international events. Here, the visit served as an opportunity to assess what strategies could be developed by linking Suncheon’s own intellectual property (IP), as well as to examine the sustainability of the content ecosystem.

On the final day, they visited Seoul’s Pokemon Town, an experiential content space where visitors can directly participate and enjoy popular IP. Suncheon City focused on analyzing Pokemon Town’s approach to IP utilization, spatial design strategies, and responses to the "fun-sumer" trend. Based on these insights, the city is envisioning a cultural space model that could revitalize the old downtown area by leveraging its own characters, Lumi and Ddungi.

Mayor Noh Gwankyu emphasized, "This policy tour was not just a simple field trip, but a practical investigation to envision Suncheon’s future," adding, "The cultural industry and E-bio are fields where Suncheon has a competitive edge. Based on what we have learned from successful cases at home and abroad, we will develop practical industrial strategies unique to Suncheon."

Meanwhile, the city plans to further detail its roadmap, moving from conceptualizing industrial models to establishing strategies and implementing them on the ground, based on the outcomes of this policy tour. There is growing interest in how Suncheon’s blueprint for future industries will be realized.

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