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| President Moon Jae-in speaks during a meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, Monday. Yonhap |
By Do Je-hae
The government will prioritize nurturing innovative industries this year in line with President Moon Jae-in's policy to improve the country's readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
During this year's first regular meeting with senior presidential aides, Monday, Moon reiterated his support for high tech industries and startups and pushed for regulatory reform to expedite innovative growth.
"We will revitalize the economy by exerting more effort to nurture new industries as future growth engines and expanding the trend for innovative startups," he said.
He noted the role of future technology in diversifying Korea's exports, which is one of the top pillars of the Korean economy. The President added he sees positive signs of the economy picking up.
"One of the positive trends in our economy is the diversification of exports to include high value-added items such as 5G-related industries and secondary batteries. It is also positive that the export markets are being expanded to the regions that fall under Korea's New Northern and Southern policies. We will support these trends by promoting investment, increasing domestic demand and exports to spur economic revitalization. With the passage of data-related bills at the National Assembly and the 'regulatory sandbox' policy, we will continue to push for regulation reform."
For an economic rebound, Moon also said that his administration will pursue stronger measures to boost tourism and raise the competitiveness of Korean products and content. "We will make this year the first year to invite 20 million foreign tourists and expand K-culture, K-content, K-beauty and K-food around the world to make Korea a global brand."
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| Moon during a ICT-related ministry briefing on Jan. 16 Korea Times photo by Wang Tae-seok |
Since the beginning of this year while starting his fourth year in office, Moon has continued to stress that this year will be devoted to showing the "outcomes" of his policies, particularly on the economy. Last week, he picked the ICT-related ministry and affiliated agencies as the first batch of government organizations to receive the New Year's policy briefing. This showed that Moon will focus on tech innovation and new industries this year as the main drivers of economic revitalization.
During a briefing by the Ministry of Science and ICT on Jan. 16, the government announced measures to promote the AI sector. "We will implement a national AI roadmap and make this year the start of our leap toward becoming a global AI leader," Moon said.
In his New Year address on Jan. 7, Moon underlined the need to promote new industries. "We will foster three new industries ― system semiconductors, biohealth and future cars ― as flagship industries to follow semiconductors. In addition, we will expand investments in such sectors as data, networks and AI to bolster the foundation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
