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Culture ministry unveils plan to attract K-pop, esports fans

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In this file photo of March 11 earlier this year, Kim Yong-sam, the First Vice Minister at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, speaks during a press conference. Courtesy of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
In this file photo of March 11 earlier this year, Kim Yong-sam, the First Vice Minister at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, speaks during a press conference. Courtesy of Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

By Anna J. Park

In an effort to attract tourists who came to be interested in Korea for K-pop or esports, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has unveiled plans to renovate the Seoul Olympic Park Gymnastics Stadium into a top-notch K-pop concert hall and build an esports stadium.

In addition, the K-Culture Festival will be launched. The government aims to promote the festival to encourage consumption of K-pop, K-beauty and Korean foods.

Responding to an increased demand for Korean language learning, the government has also vowed to strengthen Korean language education overseas. By 2022, some 1,880 elementary and junior high schools from 33 countries will have Korean language courses, while 155 universities from 11 countries will offer a major in the Korean language. The number of King Sejong Institutes, the Korean language institute operated by the Korean government, will also be increased to about 220 with hundreds of dispatched Korean teachers.

These are part of the government's key policy goals for boosting the content industry, jointly announced by the culture ministry and the Ministry of Science and ICT on Tuesday morning at a government complex in Seoul. Through the comprehensive set of policies, the government hopes to see its content industry reach an annual revenue of $125 billion, with annual exports of over $13 billion by 2022.

"The estimated annual revenue of Korea's content industry stood at $100 billion last year, with its annual exports reaching up to about $9.5 billion. That being said, Korea has witnessed an average annual growth rate of 5.8 percent over the last five years, while the export volume of the industry has increased with an average growth rate of 16 percent during the same period. The growth of the content industry is particularly known to have a very positive ripple effect on related industries," Kim Yong-sam, first vice minister of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said during Tuesday's press briefing.

"Against the backdrop of rapidly changing 5G mobile transition and the new Korean wave focusing on K-pop, the government hopes to provide growth momentum for the nation's overall content industry by actively engaging with the changes," the first vice culture minister added.

One of the major announcements Tuesday was that the government will strengthen policy financing through the format of raising a venture fund. Currently, approximately $1.4 billion of policy financing is being operated annually in the realm of the content industry. However, the government plans to additionally create a "content venture investment fund" of $380 million by 2022, which will be mainly invested into content-based small businesses to stimulate their creative growth.

Another focus will be put on nurturing the latest extended reality (XR) technologies, such as virtual and augmented reality. The culture ministry vowed to actively apply such XR technologies to the nation's public systems, including tourism, museums and cultural heritage, to further boost the content industry based on these technologies.



Park Ji-won annajpark@koreatimes.co.kr


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