Government invests in IMT-2000

The government decided to pursue development of the key components of IMT-2000, a future mobile communications system, by investing 144 billion won in the technology until 2002.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) announced that 144 billion won (government investment -- 77.4 billion won) will be invested in the development of key IMT-2000 components from this year until 2002, thereby bringing the localization ratio up to 60%.

The government`s policy aims to help Korea`s information and communications industry become internationally competitive from the beginning phase of the IMT-2000 project. It has been pointed out that in the cases of cellular and PCS phones, the localization ratio of key components is low, thereby causing an outflow of foreign currency in royalty payments.

The Ministry of Information and Communications invested 34.1 billion won (government investment --19.8 billion won) in the development of modem technology (19.6 billion won) and component technology (14.5 billion won) until last month. The ministry also decided to invest 17.5 billion won in component technology (10 billion won) and future generation key technologies (7.5 billion won) in the latter half of this year. Next year, it plans to allot 47 billion won (government investment- 24.9 billion won) to the development of modem technology (14 billion won), component technology (24.6 billion won), and future generation key technology (8.4 billion won). In 2002, 45.4 billion won (government investment- 22.7 billion won) will be invested purely in component technology development.