Seoul unveils plans for growth, job creation through 'creative economy'

SEOUL, June 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea unveiled a set of measures Wednesday to promote the "creative economy" as a way to increase jobs and ensure economic growth. Under the so-called road map for the creative economy, the government said it will seek to foster an environment where creative ideas and innovative technologies lead to new jobs and markets. The creative economy, though it has many meanings and applications, is a means through which President Park Geun-hye said she can realize many of her campaign pledges for economic development, including raising the country's overall employment rate to an astonishing 70 percent from the current 59.8 percent. Choi Mun-kee, the minister of science, ICT and future planning, said the proposed plan will help create as many as 650,000 jobs in the public sector alone. "The previous strategy of following the foot steps of advanced nations that has led the country's economic development for the past 40 years has come to its limits amid a global economic crisis and growing competition from newly emerging industrial countries," he told a press briefing. Vice Minister Lee Sang-mok said the goal of the creative economy still was to create jobs. "In the end, the ultimate goal of the creative economy is to create new businesses and jobs," he told a press briefing on Tuesday. "We can say the employment rate will reach 70 percent when the creative economy is successfully accomplished." Under its plans, the government will seek to boost public and private investment funds to gradually increase startup businesses' dependence on investment instead of loans. "This will create an environment where startup businesses can easily secure necessary funds while anyone with a good enough idea can start a new business," the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said in a press release. To this end, the government will create a 500-billion-won (US$446 million) investment fund while also promoting private investment through what is known as an angels fund. In total, the government plans to inject over 40 trillion won over the next five years, starting with 6.9 trillion won this year to implement its plans for the creative economy, the vice science minister said. Government support for businesses will also be extended to their intellectual properties. The government will set up a blueprint for the development of new technologies and ideas that can be patented while working to create synergy between different ideas and products. It will also create a 200-billion-won investment fund specifically for patented ideas. To help create a market for new products and technologies, the government will seek to become the first customer for such products through its procurement system. The government will also pursue what it called a "creative economy vitamin project," which seeks to promote integration of information technology in conventional industries, such as agriculture, food, culture and infrastructure, to help revitalize the industrial sectors and prompt integration between them as well. bdk@yna.co.kr (END)