KICOX Selects Businesses to Participate in Industrial Complex Environment Improvement Fund
Plans to raise 310 billion won in the policy fund, the biggest-ever-one, in 171 industrial complexes
Kim Jung-hwan, President of the KICOX. (Photo: KICOX)
Korea Industrial Complex Corp. (KICOX) has requested the private sector participate in a state-financed fund to strengthen the competitiveness of industrial complexes and improve their working conditions this year.
A public contest for a project related to an environmental improvement fund at industrial complexes is to be conducted until July 8. The project is designed to attract the private sector¡¯s investments to improve the environment of decrepit industrial complexes and build facilities to upgrade the type of businesses.
The government contributed 637 billion won for the contest, which will help implement 44 projects, including knowledge industry centers and workers¡¯ officetels, for the past nine years, which has induced 3.307.4 trillion won in new investments.
Beneficiaries of the 2020 public contest are 32 state-run industrial complexes, including Seoul Digital, Namdong and Banweol/Sihwa, and 124 general industrial complex, including Daegu Seongseo and Busan Shinpyeongjangrim, as well as 15 industrial complexes located in the special disaster area related to the spread of COVID-19.
Eligible investment areas included the industry concentration and upgrade category, a housing and convenience culture category and industrial infrastructure category.
KICOX plans to focus on the implementation of public-private sector partnership projects to reinvigorate the manufacturing industry and smart real estate development projects.
The latest public contest will not be held to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and video materials are to be released in banners of KICOX¡¯s website (www.kicox.or.kr).
KICOX President Kim Jung-hwan said, ¡°The year 2020 is a significant year in which Fund investments, which has been made so far, will bear intensive fruits and the biggest-ever investments are made.¡± KICOX plans to provide active support to private investors¡¯ exploring of creative ideas and the expediting of projects, he added.
¡®Smart Industrial Complexes¡¯ to be Expanded to 20 by 2030
The spread of COVID-19 is creating ¡°the new normal.¡± In the past, the construction of global supply networks and production centers focused on access to global markets and cost reductions.
Biological threats and movement restrictions, caused by the spread of contagious diseases, have become new factors. Companies want to diversify global supplies chains, concentrated on specific countries like China in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now is the time when Korea needs to make infrastructure investments to help reshoring Korean companies and make industry and manufacturing intelligent and smart.
In a meeting on root industries on May 28, Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Sung Yun-mo said Korea needs to build a stable supply chain in the course of the restructuring of the global economy in the wake of the spread of COVID-19, and now is a critical situation in which the nation has to undergo a fundamental change of root industries in keeping with new changes such as the 4th Industrial Revolution.
State-run industrial complexes serve as the nation¡¯s major export center. Guro First Industrial Complex made its debut in 1967. Currently, there are 47 state-run industrial complexes.
As of February, 65 industrial complexes under the jurisdiction of KICOX saw production stand at 39 trillion won, a 6.4 percent drop from the previous month. Exports decreased 7 percent to $12.2 billion.
As COVID-19 spread globally, economic side effects were expected to bring great damages to tenant companies at the industrial complexes.
MOTIE has come up with steps to provide emergency relief support to industrial complexes buffeted by the spread of COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 steps to ramp up competitiveness.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT), MOTIE on May 7 designated five decrepit industrials in Gyeongsangbuk-do, Gwanju, Daegu, Incheon and Jeollanamdo as the ones, to be renovated as regional industrial centers.
The project is designed provide full support to develop the industrial complexes into regional industrial centers to create jobs in the post-COVID-19 era.
MOTIE plans to expand the number of ¡°smart industrial complexes¡± to 20 by 2030. Smart industrial complexes refer to the ones in which identical industrial and value-chain companies nurture related manufacturing industries by sharing corporate big data beyond each company¡¯s smartification.