The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (Minister Ahn Deok-geun, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy) held an expert meeting at the Korea Technology Center on the 21st to discuss the '5th Basic Plan for Industrial Complex Activation (Draft)' (hereinafter referred to as the 5th Plan).
The Basic Plan for Industrial Cluster Activation is a statutory plan that presents the government's policy direction to promote industrial clustering and strengthen the competitiveness of industrial clusters (Article 3 of the Industrial Cluster Act). In order to prepare the 5th plan, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has conducted extensive consultation and opinion gathering with specialized institutions, industrial locations and regional industrial policy experts, and has also conducted opinion surveys with relevant ministries and local governments.
This meeting, held ahead of the finalization of the 5th plan at the end of this month, was attended by public institutions and research institutes such as the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, and the Korea Technopark Promotion Association, as well as industrial complex tenant companies such as the Korea Industrial Complex Management Association and the Global Leading Companies Association, as well as Professor Nam Ki-beom of Seoul City University and Professor Jaesik Choi of KAIST, who conducted a final review of the contents of the 5th plan and held in-depth discussions.
Looking at the background and main contents of the 5th plan, industrial clusters urgently need to secure competitiveness to respond to industrial megatrends such as global cutting-edge industry development competition, rapid development of artificial intelligence technology, and strengthening of international carbon standards. Along with stagnant productivity in industrial complexes, low economic growth rates are becoming entrenched in non-metropolitan areas, and the innovation capacity of the regional industry-academia-research ecosystem is also lacking. In addition, local industrial complexes are aging** and lacking work and settlement infrastructure, which is worsening the phenomenon of avoidance by young people.
The 5th plan aims to “realize a future-oriented industrial cluster leading cutting-edge industries,” and contains policy tasks to ▲ secure industrial sites centered on cutting-edge and key industries in each region, ▲ build an ultra-wide-area cluster ecosystem that overcomes regional limitations, and ▲ transform industrial complexes into youth-friendly spaces and central spaces for the transition to artificial intelligence (AX) and carbon neutrality (GX).
