Information Minister Reports His Work Plans

An international-level information and technology hub will be established in Song-do, Incheon with 790.7 billion won in investment money starting this year and ending in 2010.

At the same time, the setting-up of IT clusters where local specialized industries and the IT industry are harmoniously situated will be promoted nationwide.

Minister of Information and Communication (MIC) Jin Dae-je on March 4 reported the details and his ministry’s work plans for this year regarding the aforementioned project to President Roh Moo-hyun at Cheong Wa Dae.

The IT hub, to be created in Song-do, Incheon, will provide design, manufacturing and testing facilities for radio frequency identification (RFID) companies and support them with managerial and technological consulting.

A total of eight IT clusters are to be developed: a content cluster in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul; an optical communications cluster in Gwang-ju and other regions in Jeolla province; a research and development cluster in Chungcheong province including Daejeon; a telematics cluster in Jeju; an intelligent physical distribution system hub in Busan and South Gyeongsang province; a software hub in Daegu and North Gyeongsang province; and a bio-industry hub in Wonju and Gangwon province. In these IT clusters, corporations, research labs, and financial institutions will gather and work together to create a synergistic effect.

The Ministry of Information and Communication also decided to designate this year as the “year of another leap” in the software industry, referring to software products such as online games.

In regards to this, it intends to up the percentage of local software products from the present 18 percent to 40 percent by 2010, and gain a bigger market share by expanding Korea’s export of online games and content, currently overly concentrated in Asia, to the United States and Europe.

Minister Jin reported, “Our ministry will pour 417.1 billion won into our plan to increase the administrative knowledge database and improve the transportation and physical distribution system, which would activate the economy greatly, as part of our bid to succor innovation of this nation’s overall operation system.”

The Ministry of Information and Communication predicted that commercial “WiBro” products, digital supporting actors and actresses, network-based robots and wearable computer prototypes would be developed as part of the new IT growth engine.

Suk-Min Hong smhong@donga.com