Invest KOREA

According to Yonhap News,

(SEOUL=Yonhap News) The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will attract investment of KRW 25 billion for member companies of the Creative Economy Leader (CEL) Venture Complex.

The ministry announced the plan at the first CEL media day held at the cultural complex in Jung-gu, Seoul on Aug 8th.

In a bid to achieve its investment promotion goal, the ministry will hold CEL demo days and step up investor relations activities while enhancing consulting and mentoring services for member companies.

Value evaluation applied to video contents and games last month will be gradually expanded to broadcasting and animation by the end of this year and to music and performing arts by next year.

Such value evaluation translates economic value generated or expected to be generated from commercialization of contents projects into price, grade or score. The scheme was adopted to help small and medium sized companies which have excellent contents yet meet limitations in using financial services due to lack of collateral.

A center for contents valuation opened in the venture complex last month, and succeeded in attracting investment of KRW 500 million through value evaluation of mobile game EXORUN.

CEL member companies have collectively raised so far KRW 6.9 billion in investment, and are currently discussing investment of KRW 5 billion with outside partners.

Open innovation, where products of SMEs are applied to platforms or distribution channels of large conglomerates will also be put in practice aiming to create success cases of convergence.

The ministry aims to increase the number of CEL member companies to 250 by the end of this year and 400 by next year, after additionally evaluating companies with potential in other strategic zones including Centers for Creative Economy & Innovation.

CEL member companies are eligible for benefits such as support to kickstart investment promotion and participate in overseas exhibitions.

The Culture Ministry will also implement a program to nurture creative talents fit for convergence. As a part of the effort, the Culture Creation Academy scheduled to open in Dongdaemun-gu will form a collaborative network One Campus with nearby universities including Kyung Hee University and Seoul National University of Science & Technology.

Idle land in provincial areas will be established as venture complexes to spread the business model of CEL to regions outside of Seoul, and creation of convergence contents will be supported and linked to local Centers for Creative Economy & Innovation.

CEL member companies will be classified as planning·entry and growth·maturity stages, and provided with customized support programs divided into content, platform and technology.

Gardens in venture complexes and CEL stages will be open to the public and used for art performances, Korean food festivals and K-pop shows.

pseudojm@yna.co.kr

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Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (Aug. 8, 2016)
** This article is translated from the Korean.