The government is stepping on the gas to build culture creation and convergence belts to proliferate hallyu (Korean Wave).
The government, public entities and the private sector singed eight MOUs at a ceremony to embark on a project to build the tentatively named Culture Creation and Convergence Belt at the CJ E&M Center in Sangam-dong, Seoul, on Feb. 11.
Those entities included the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST), the Presidential Committee for Cultural Enrichment, the Ministry of Science, Technology, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP), the Financial Services Commission (FSC), the Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA) and Korea Creative Content Agency (KCCA) as well as such companies as CJ E&M, SM, Cheil Industries, Shinsaegae, Naver, and Daum Kakao.
The Culture Creation and Convergence Belt project aims at building a hallyu ecosystem in which convergence and multidisciplinary content planning, production and investment are done at hallyu centers by connecting cultural content facilities and creative economy innovation centers across the nation. The project provides support for collaboration between the government and the private sector in all areas ranging from video to music, fashion, food, and game.
Under the MOUs, the Culture Creation and Convergence Center, which opened at the CJ E&M Center in Sangam-dong on Feb. 11, the Culture Creation Venture Complex, located at the Korea Trade Organization Building in downtown Seoul, the Culture Creation Academy, which is to open at the former site of Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) by the end of 2016, and the K-Culture Valley, which will made its debut in Goyang, north of Seoul, by the end of 2017, will be nurtured as hallyu centers.
The Culture Creation and Convergence Center is charged with providing support for content creation and production. The Culture Creation Venture Complex will offer office and production facilities for start-up and smaller companies of the content field to have synergetic effects, and it will also provide a one-stop service for supporting for attracting investments in content production and exploration of foreign markets. The Culture Creation Academy will be charged with R&D and manpower development. CJ will head a consortium to pour 1 trillion won for the creation of the K-Culture Valley, which accommodates a 1,500-seat multi-purpose convergence and multidisciplinary performance theater and the tentatively named Hallyu Street for experiencing hallyu.
The Cultural Creative Economic Special Committee will be formed under the umbrella of the Presidential Committee for Cultural Enrichment to take responsibility over overall planning. A 260 billion won fund will be created to nurture promising content projects and companies. The government expects the move to bring about direct and indirect economic effects worth 25 trillion won over the next 10 years and creation of some 170,000 jobs.
“The cultural content industry is a representative one of the creative economy, based on imaginations and ideas, and it is dubbed ‘the alchemy of the 21 Century’ that can create added-values by imbuing creative imaginations to tourism, medical and education and manufacturing industries,” said President Park Geun-hye at the inauguration ceremony.
“The nuclei of the so-called Big Bang in the cultural content are creative people, and a network connecting people is the catalyst,” said President Park, adding that “in this aspect, businessmen of the cultural content industry and content creators’ pledging to collaborate at this moment is the beginning of the upcoming Big Bang.”
On the same day, President Park watched a concert consisting of robot musical instruments and indie bands jointly performed by remote control television relay at three places — the CJ E&M Center, the Gwanghwamun Venture Complex and the studio near Hoingik University in Shinchon.
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