Deputy Minister Yoon Tae-yong of the Cultural Content Industry Office at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST).(Photo:MCST)

A view of the “Made In Korea - Culture Creates Industry” exhibition held at the Dongdaemun Design Center in Seoul from March 3-7.

"We plan to create added values by advancing the Cultural Creation Convergence Belt, designed to build a virtuous cycle ecosystem of the content industry,” said Deputy Minister Yoon Tae-yong of the Cultural Content Industry Office at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST). 

“The belt will build core platforms of the cultural industry around the world through strategic collaboration with companies and foreign organizations as well as all government agencies,” he added. 

The following are excerpts of an interview between NewsWorld and Deputy MCST Minister Yoon in which he spoke of policies to nurture content industry as growth engines of the Korean economy. 

Question: Will you introduce the year 2016’s major policy tasks of your office charged with realizing cultural enrichment by leading the creative industry?

Answer: Cultural enrichment ends up not just watching culture, enjoying it and creeping into daily lives, but also it realizes the creative industry when it comes to have an impact on the industry. In this regard, there are diverse fields, including industrialization of traditional culture and “creative” tourism industry. Cultural content is a representative business that can realize the creative economy through cultural enrichment. 

Our office strives to expand growth engines for the Korean economy through the industrialization of culture this year. The industrialization of culture means the continuous development of a foundation for the development of the cultural content industry, nurturing core content items, and developing and utilizing convergence content items combined with such technologies as ICT. 

We plan to create added values by advancing the Cultural Creation Convergence Belt, designed to build a virtuous cycle ecosystem of the content industry. The belt will build core platforms of the cultural industry around the world through strategic collaboration with companies and foreign organizations as well as all government agencies.

The ministry plans to open up future opportunities of the cultural industry, delivering hope to youth by devoting itself to developing the Cultural Creation Convergence Belt. It will be put into service in a full-fledged fashion in 2016. Tenant companies will be provided with support tailored to meet their needs based on the monitoring of business performances to help them enjoy explosive growth and create Korea’s representative convergence and multidisciplinary content items. 

We plan to nurture advanced content items creating new markets by going beyond the limit of the conventional genres. The gaming industry will be offered with innovative R&D support; the webtoon industry, which is emerging as a new growth engine, will be backed to help it evolve into next-generation convergence webtoons; and the film and animation industries, the scenes of high-tech realization, will benefit from support to develop advanced technologies, including multi-planar images and visual special effects so that they can have a head start. 

Besides, our office plans to accelerate the industrialization of culture by setting up overseas distribution platforms, supporting convergence content funds and overhauling taxes related to the content field. 

Q: Will you touch on a vision of Korea’s rising to a G7 content industry powerhouse and its role as a future industry?

A: The world is evolving into a creative economy that creates new growth engines by combining imaginations and emotions and technology, knowledge and culture under the sustainable development paradigm. The content industry is attracting attention as a key strategic industry of the creative economy.

Unlike the manufacturing industry, the content industry has emerged as a core industry of the global economy that creates added values of industries and spill-over effects by mingling creativity, emotion and advanced technology. Major countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan and China are scrambling to nurture the content industry as a “clean” industry to lead green growth.

A representative success story in focus is the “Cool Britania” strategy, announced by the United Kingdom in 1997, a state-run strategic policy calling for nurturing such creative industries as film, advertising and design into national strategic industries. The strategy has paid off: it added 136 trillion won in added values to the British economy and saw the base year growth rate surge some 9.4 percent, surpassing the overall industry growth rate standing at 1.6 percent. 

The content industry has not only made strides in such economic indexes as sales, added value rate and export growth rate, but it has also created good quality jobs suited for youth with higher educational backgrounds and creative ideas with technology. The industry, as a moving brand, has spillover effects for such service-related manufacturing industries as tourism and leisure facilities, thus enhancing corporate and national standing. 

The government, designating the content industry as new growth engines for realizing the creative economy, is hitting the accelerator to build such infrastructure as technology financing, gifted manpower development and the exploration of the global market and institutional reform. We expect that the government’s policy will lead to the birth of killer content, fascinating people around the world and delivering excitement and inspiration. 

The inside of the K9, a full-size luxury car produced by Kia Motors, which is on display at a pavilion on corporate convergence during the fair.

Q:  Will you elaborate on strategies when it comes to the sustainable development of the cultural content industry?

A: Despite the sagging global economy, the global content industry, valued at $1.83 trillion, is a promising future industry with an annual average growth rate of 5 percent. As Hallyu (Korean Wave) is recognized as the nation’s cultural capability and excellent ICT power by the world, Korea needs to foster the convergent content industry as new growth engines. 

Convergence and multidisciplinary combination in are not new in the content industry. Musicals have already been established as a popular genre combing traditional performing arts and stage technology and pop music, and the webtoon segment is also a genre of cartoon combining ICT. 

Of late, technology development has picked up speed, with barriers among convergence and multidisciplinary combination industries breaking apart rapidly. Combining such technology as virtual reality and augmented reality; and gaming, fashion and film has created new cultural content items, the marriage of hologram technology and K-Pop have created a world in which people can appreciate hologram performances by idol signers at any time at the center of Seoul. 

The government inaugurated the Cultural Creativity Convergence Belt last year as an industrial structure in which anyone imbued with ideas and technology can earn money by creating convergence content items.

The belt consists of six support hubs as virtuous cycle industry cultivation platforms to help individuals with ideas plan, produce and sell convergence content using its infrastructure, and go abroad. Three hubs  Cultural Creation Convergence Center for content planning, the Cultural Creativity Venture Center for content production/commercialization and tenant accommodation space, and the Cultural Creativity Academy for manpower development and technology development will make their debut this year. 

We expect the Cultural Creativity Convergence Belt to serve as a pivot to create new convergence content items as well as an engine to promote the sustainable development of the content industry. 

Chai Kim Young-jin’s representation of an ancient soldier’s robe into modern one-piece hanbok on display at the traditional Korean pavilion during the exhibition.

A maxi coat by Hwang Leesle, a modification of hanbok, at the traditional Korean pavilion during the exhibition.

Q: Will you tell our readers about the current status and prospects of such Hallyu as K-POP?

A: Overseas Hallyu aficionado clubs and memberships are on the surge. Hallyu is evolving with attention spreading to the whole of Korean culture, including Hangul (Korean alphabet), Korean cuisine, fashion and beauty.

By area, Hallyu is all the rage in China, Japan and Southeast Asia. Hallyu fever is spreading to North America, Europe and Central and South America. China and Southeast Asia emerge as major markets with big demand for Hallyu, Japan, albeit somewhat slowing down, still is the biggest Hallyu market. North America and Europe are showing signs of an upsurge in Hallyu thanks to the spread of new medical platforms. 

Currently, the K-pop is a mainstay segment of Hallyu, but such content segments as web-drama, Korean cuisine and K-Beauty have been gaining ground. The web-drama is gaining popularity in such places as Japan, Southeast Asia and the United States. Market shares are forecast to keep on rising there. 

Korean food franchises are aggressively making inroads into Taiwan, and concern toward the Korean cuisine is on the rise in Europe and Africa. 

Q: Will you explain your office’s policies to spread such Hallyu industries as fashion and Korean cuisine?

A: Hallyu has economic spillover effects estimated at 17.3 trillion won. The combination of Hallyu and other industries could have a potential to create greater added values. Stats made available in 2014 showed that Hallyu saw production induction effects stand at 12.6 trillion won, added value induction effects amount to 4.7 trillion won and job creation induction effect of employing 100,000 people. 

The government established a plan for a government-private joint task force designed to promote Hallyu last December. According to the plan, the government plans to strengthen steps tailored to meet needs according to each sphere, expand global market access, increase Hallyu experiences, and advance a system to support overseas exploration of foreign markets this year. In particular, the government plans to ramp up Hallyu marketing activities to help excellent Korean SMEs and cultural items tap foreign markets. It will help Korean companies publicize their products and hold negotiations on exports at such Hallyu events, hosted by prominent private organizations as KCON, an annual K-pop festival held in the United States and Japan, and the Mnet Asia Music Awards. We also plan to expand Hallyu experiences by setting up more multi-purpose Hallyu malls and Hallyu experience places in Korea and abroad. 

Jeong Kwan Jang Korean ginseng items produced by Korea Ginseng Corp., one of the exhibitions of the traditional Korean pavilion during the exhibition.

Bibigo Rice, produce by CJ, which is on display at the traditional Korean cuisine pavilion at the exhibition. (Photos:MCST)

Q: Will you give details about the development of Korea’s indigenous content and K-style assets?

A: Korea’s unique content items should be based on our tradition and stories hailing from each district. For instance, Cheongdo’s bullfighting is the area’s representative cultural product. 

If these are diversified to animation, character and tourism products via a one-source multi-use method, they may change into Korea’s indigenous content items that are seen in all parts of the world. To this end, the ministry plans to pursue content cultivation through collaboration with regional cultural content organizations. Taking a look at the animation “Frozen” that made a sensation, which is based on a folktale in Norway, Korea’s ingenious content could have diverse spillover effects when its self-sustaining ability is ensured. K-style, Hallyu’s broader conception, may be summarized up as Koreans’ creativity, challenging spirit, companies and performers’ endless efforts and the pursing of content with excellent IT technology. If these assets can be incorporated into K-pop,  Korean cuisine, fashion and Korean lifestyle, we may create K-style trends on our own. 

Furthermore, with K-style spreading to include Korean lifestyle and traditional culture, we will devote ourselves to making content that delivers Korea’s ingeniousness and global sentiment to people around the world.