Invest KOREA

According to Yonhap News,

(SEOUL=Yonhap News) "Short-term demand-side measures such as fiscal expansion or interest rate policy will not be enough to tide over current crisis. We need a fundamental and structural solution so as to identify and foster emerging industries." said Huh Chang-soo, chairman of the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) at a kick-off meeting for 'Nationwide Forum on Promotion of Emerging Industry' held at the FKI Tower in Yeoido, Seoul on July 11, 2016. "As the Korean economy is facing unprecedented structural challenges, we need to come up with ground-breaking solutions."

Throughout the forum, the FKI is asserting the need of drastic paradigm shift to 'emerging industry supply policy' to overcome limited additional government spending and sluggish export recovery.

As a way to identify emerging industries, the FKI proposed to look for the 'high chance industry','undersupply' industry, and state-led industry.

The high chance industry refers to businesses with higher chances of success than the high-tech industry. It has abundant demand and clear comparative advantage, but is blocked by regulation. This type of business includes industries related to mountain climbing or trekking, smart healthcare, and vehicle refurbishment.

The undersupply industry is businesses short of supply compared to highly competitive oversupply industries. Examples are the senior care, agri-food, and marine leisure industry, which haven't been fully introduced or taken root in the domestic market but have tremendous market opportunities.

The state-led industries are businesses too massive to be conducted by individuals or private companies such as aircraft MRO or bio-pharmaceutical business.

The FKI is scheduled to hold a series of forums nationwide to seek ways to foster emerging industries with local government until September.

Themes of the forum will be the food industry in North Jeolla Province where national food cluster is being built, vehicle refurbishment in South Jeolla where car racing circuit is underutilized, and the bio-pharmaceutical industry in Incheon where its biopharma manufacturing capability is advancing to the world's best level.

"Talks discussed in the forums will be submitted to the National Assembly to call for revision or review of related policies" said an official of the FKI. "Going further, we will continue to build the industrial foundation through cooperation with local governments."

freemong@yna.co.kr

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Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (Jul. 11, 2016)
** This article is translated from the Korean.