Roundup: S. Korea promoting "creative economy"

In order to help boost the domestic economy and create jobs in South Korea, in 2013, the Park Geun-hye government advanced what it termed as "the creative economy."

The policy, enunciated under the plan, Creative Economy Measures to Create the Ecosystem for Creative Economy, is aimed at supporting and expanding small-to-medium businesses that can lead to job creation up the value chain.

In the same year, the South Korean government allocated 3.31 trillion won (some 3 billion U.S. dollars) to support startup companies as the new growth engines.

The Small and Medium Business Association also earmarked 3.9 trillion won (some 3.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2014 and 4 trillion won (some 3.5 billion U.S. dollars) this year to support start-up ventures.

Large conglomerates like Samsung or Hyundai, which led in propelling South Korea's remarkable economic growth in half a century, found it hard to continue their competitiveness in recent years. South Korea's GDP has suffered a four consecutive years of below 4 percent growth.

Thus, the government was forced to reduce its reliance on the conglomerates and instead focused in promoting small and medium industries.

The country started to build innovative business ecosystem through online to offline connection. A website named Creative Economy Town has been launched as an idea hub where young entrepreneurs can upload their ideas and seek ways of turning them into business.

Mentoring service and various government-founded venture competitions are also available online.

A more practical move was the opening of 17 Centers for Creative Economy & Innovation (CCEI) across the country as regional innovation hubs to support startup ventures.

These centers spread over 17 cities and provinces in supported jointly by local governments and major Korean companies.

South Korea's large business groups, known as chaebols, have lent their expertise and resources to startups through support in R&D, marketing and overseas expansion.

The 17 centers have certain industries to support, mainly in line with the chaebols' own core business. Samsung Electronics, for example, has set up two centers in the southeastern cities of Daegu and Gumi to support electronic startups.

Hyundai Motor has one center in the southwestern city of Gwangju, which is trying to make it an innovative hub of new energy vehicles.

South Korea's CJ group, which owns the country's largest film distributors, has supported a center that cultivates K-pop startups.

The Daejeon Center for Creative Economy & Innovation (DCCEI) is being supported by both the South Korean government and the country's third largest Chaebol SK group.

Over 24 startups have been "incubated" by DCCEI this year.

Under the DCCEI program, each startup receives 20,000 U.S. dollars for starting capital and 200,000 U.S. dollars for technology development. It also gets a chance to attract investments from SK-KNET fund and Daejeon "angel" fund.

Daejeon, where the DCCEI is based, is seen as a perfect place for the hub of open innovation.

The city accommodates almost 30,000 scientists and engineers from 30 R&D institutes, 35 research centers of enterprises and 13 universities, including the country's top research university. Endi