Fostering the Gwangyang Bay Area as a K-battery Raw Material Hub... Strengthening Regional Industrial Competitiveness

Focusing on the bid for a national high-tech secondary battery specialized complex
Building a foundation from raw material sourcing to recycling
Concentrating on creating new growth and job opportunities

Overview of Yulchon 1 Industrial Complex in the Gwangyang Bay Area. Photo provided by Jeonnam Province.

Jeollanam-do is working to attract a national high-tech strategic industry (secondary batteries) specialized complex centered on the Gwangyang Bay Area.

As global competition in the battery industry is shifting beyond production scale toward the stable securing of raw materials and critical minerals and the establishment of supply chains, Jeollanam-do plans to develop the Gwangyang Bay Area into a "raw material hub" to enhance the competitiveness of local industries.

The Gwangyang Bay Area has strengths from a supply-chain perspective, including its raw material and materials industry base, port and logistics infrastructure, and concentration of industrial complexes, and therefore has all the necessary conditions for creating a specialized complex.

Accordingly, in responding to the public contest, Jeollanam-do is preparing its proposal with a focus on key feasibility factors (infrastructure, investment, workforce, and governance), and is systematically strengthening its competitiveness by emphasizing in the application that it can realize a full-cycle ecosystem within a single zone, from the raw material stage through to recycling.

To refine its attraction strategy, Jeollanam-do held the "Gwangyang Bay Area Secondary Battery Specialized Complex Attraction Forum" at the National Assembly on December 22 last year, gathering a wide range of opinions from industry and experts.

Based on the proposals presented at the forum, the province is supplementing its application for the public contest and simultaneously preparing for the presentation evaluation, including the PT session and expected Q&A.

The province is also strengthening its talent base, another key pillar of competitiveness for the specialized complex.

On February 11, Jeollanam-do signed a work agreement on "training professionals in secondary batteries" with 10 universities in the Gwangju and Jeonnam region at the provincial government office. The plan is to jointly utilize the universities' education and training infrastructure and to systematize a human resources pipeline that connects education, on-site training, and employment through industry-academia-research collaboration, thereby supporting talent who study and grow in the region to play active roles in local industrial sites.

In addition, the province plans to expand its technology support base by establishing a specialized marine battery data hub in Yeosu and a next-generation secondary battery raw material (core materials) verification platform in Gwangyang. Once a one-stop verification system is in place for data collection and standardization, as well as raw material analysis and evaluation, it is expected to help companies reduce trial and error and accelerate commercialization.

Building on these preparations, Jeollanam-do plans to submit its application for the specialized complex by February 27 and to devote its full efforts to preparing for the presentation evaluation in March.

Kim Gihong, Director General of the Strategic Industries Bureau of Jeollanam-do, said, "By bringing together the foundation and regional capabilities of the Gwangyang Bay Area, we will steadily pursue the attraction of a specialized complex that provides a stable supply chain environment for companies and creates new growth and job opportunities for the region."

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