BUSAN < invest Korea

A new innovation support center is to come into being, along with an open-concept gym, in the Sinpyeong-Jangrim Industrial Complex in Busan by 2020.

The Busan Metropolitan Government announced, on March 27, that the Sinpyeong-Jangrim Industrial Complex, the oldest industrial complex in Busan, was designated as a target of the national government’s Program of Support for the Construction of Innovation Support Centers and Open-Concept Gyms in Industrial Complexes this year. The designation is expected to increase support for the old industrial complex’s transformation on top of the support it has already been getting since 2016 when the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) named it as one of the “Innovative Industrial Complexes” to be renovated with government support.

The Busan Metropolitan Government expects these designations to enable the transformation of Sinpyeong-Jangrim into a new central base of innovation by enhancing its competitiveness and working environment.

In December 2016, the MOTIE named 17 old industrial complexes, including Sinpyeong-Jangrim, across Korea that were to be renovated as “Innovative Industrial Complexes.”

Under the MOTIE’s program, the Sinpyeong-Jangrim Industrial Complex is to receive a total budget of KRW 228.7 billion (including KRW 45.7 billion from the national treasury, KRW 38.1 billion from the metropolitan government, and KRW 144.9 billion from private-sector investors) for 21 projects concerning the renovation of physical facilities, enhancing the added values and the innovative capabilities of tenant industries, and improving the working and settlement conditions, which are to be completed by 2026.

◇ Development of an innovation support center

With support from the national government for the creation of an innovation support center, the Busan Metropolitan Government hopes to establish a multipurpose facility capable of accommodating the entire range of support agencies on one site and thereby widening the array of support services and resources available for the innovation of tenant businesses. The new center, once completed, will serve as an anchor facility that supports businesses, the development of new technologies, and the creation and growth of startup enterprises and help transform the Sinpyeong-Jangrim Industrial Complex, a manufacturing-centered facility with an outdated design, into an urban industrial cluster serving new industries and boosting local development.

A total budget of KRW 10.5 billion (including KRW 4 billion from the national government and KRW 6.5 billion from the metropolitan government) is to be invested in the creation of the innovation center. The main goal is to establish the center as the base for the local robotics industry, with the help of the Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence (KIRO) Busan as well as the Donga University Research Park (URP) Project Group, toward creating decent jobs, disseminating models of smart factories, innovating manufacturing processes, and improving the productivity of local businesses.

◇ Development of an open-concept gym

Another budget of KRW 10 billion (equal parts contributed by the national and metropolitan governments) is to be invested in the creation of a multipurpose gym with a swimming pool on Sinpyeong Leisure and Sports Park.

The gym is to host a wide variety of sporting events for local workers and residents and also offer a broad array of exercise equipment and facilities to be shared by locals. Once completed, the gym will help improve the public image of the industrial complex.

The Busan Metropolitan Government plans to have the executive designs of both the innovation support center and the gym completed by the latter half of this year so that construction could commence in January 2019, with a view of completion by December 2020.

The Busan Metropolitan Government also intends to have studio apartment complexes and urban housing buildings built, with private-sector developers’ participation, in the neighborhood opposite to the Sinpyeong Station so that workers could commute more easily. The metropolitan government continues to encourage private-sector investment in improving the conditions at the industrial complex for tenant businesses.

Suh Byung-soo, Mayor of Busan, explained: “The national government’s support for the creation of an innovation support center and an open-concept gym at the Sinpyeong-Jangrim Industrial Complex has paved the way for transforming the outdated manufacturing-centered complex into a new urban industrial cluster, equipped with significantly improved working and living conditions. The Busan Metropolitan Government will continue to make its best efforts to ensure that the new industrial cluster would successfully be established as a center of innovation in Korea.”

Source Text

Source: Newsis (Mar. 27, 2018)

** This article was translated from the Korean.