Policy

June 23 marked the day when the whole world found out how advanced Korea's IT was. The Korean government had the honor of winning the 'Global e-Government System 2010' award at the 2010 United Nations Public Service Day, which was held at the AXA Convention Center in Barcelona, Spain for 3 days. It was another outstanding accomplishment the nation achieved after it was ranked first on the 'development of e-government index' and the 'online participation index' earlier this year.

There are many ways of doing a rain check for the year 2010. One can observe the clouds to see which way the majority is tilting towards, feel the gushing winds and see what the media has to say, or one can simply see what the government has to say about the following year. With all the speculation about what has to happen in 2010, the government certainly seems firm about their plans and policies that will lead to economic development, better living standards, and overall just do a better job putting food on the table for everyone.

Biosimilars

Since the global economic crisis, countries around the globe have experienced an economic recession with high unemployment rate. However, many experts believe the recession is almost over. The government, associations and many companies are ready to make investments in new fields with high potentials.

700 billion won new growth fund investment will help the small and medium size companies.

A comprehensive brain research center will open in 2013. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said on Sept. 30 that it has finalized a plan to establish a Korea Brain Research Center (tentatively named) which will play a leading role in conducting comprehensive research on various cerebral diseases and convergence research on the brain in preparation for an aging society.

This brain research center is expected to emerge as a convergence research Mecca encompassing brain medical science, IT and natural sciences, and as a laboratory of brain science.

The Gyeonggi provincial government has decided to develop Gwanggyo Techno Valley as Korea's leading science and technology cluster.

A ceremony was held at Gwanggyo Techno Valley on Sept. 22, where Gyeonggi Province declared its vision to turn the valley into a mecca of state of the art science and announced a brand integration.

The South Korean government announced medical tourism as one of its 17 next-generation growth engines. It set the goal to create a medical tourism boom following countries such as Thailand, Singapore and India.

The Korea Communications Commission (Chairman Choi See-Joong) announced that they spoke about the present condition of Korea's broadband network construction and policy direction with the TF team leader of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the US.  He was on a visit to Korea on September 14, 2009.

"It's important for enterprises to make a preemptive investment, while it's also important to be prudent in a crisis," said President Lee Myung-bak. He particularly reiterated the importance of expanding civilian investment in the IT industry.

The 3 countries of Korea, China, and Japan are creating a joint market to share information in order to prevent power plant accidents.  Each of the countries has experienced accidents with power plants in their own lands.