The government on Thursday announced a plan to strengthen the country’s creative content market by creating an ideal environment for creators, investing in state-of-the-art content and supporting the export of content by 2022.

Officials highlighted that most local companies in the creative content market are small in size and suffer from a lack of funding, infrastructure and manpower. To address these issues, the government seeks to increase investment in the sector from 350 billion won ($311 million) a year to 500 billion a year by 2022.

“The creative content industry is one of the most promising industries of the future,” said Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon during a pan-governmental meeting on state affairs. “In order to keep up with such massive flow, government bodies, including the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, have prepared a strategy, upon which we will announce specific plans in fields like game, music and animation.”

Based on the blueprint drawn up by the pan-governmental team, the government will establish specific plans by the first half of 2019.

Related ministries will expand key financial policies, including state-private investment, a low interest rate for smaller companies, and allowing companies to take out loans payable upon completion of projects.

In addition, the government will establish the Game School next year, under which experts in the video game industry will play a part in fostering the next generation of experts. A similar center for movies will also be established next year.

Seoul will also launch an as-of-yet-unnamed project to create virtual reality and augmented reality facilities that allow users to enjoy Korea’s cultural and tourism content. It will begin with a 14 billion-won project on creating hands-on programs involving cultural heritage in cooperation with the National Museum of Korea, and more investments in research and development for related technologies.

Meanwhile, a 19 billion-won project to establish the Asian Film Center, through which Asian countries can hold exchange programs related to films and education, is in the works for next year, as part of a plan to boost overseas sales of local content.

According to the Korea Creative Content Agency, Korean companies are forecast to have exported an accumulated $7.5 billion worth of creative content in 2018, up 8.8 percent from the previous year. On the whole, the creative content market is expected to have accumulated 116 trillion won in sales.

The government says its plan is expected to lead to the creation of 33,000 new jobs, an additional 24.7 trillion won in sales and a 2.6 billion won boost in exports of creative content. 


By Yoon Min-sik
(minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)