SEOUL, KOREA - The key economic driving force behind Park’s administration is based around the convergence of Korean industries with science and ICT. Since her time on the campaign trail, Park Geun-hye has underlined the potential integration of ICT with diverse industries such as service, culture, and electronics to generate a new growth engine for Korea’s economy. Park said in an inauguration speech that, “The government will proceed forward with building a creative economy in an attempt to achieve Korea’s economic prosperity. This creative economy is based upon integrating science technologies and industries, as well as culture and industries. The hope is that this collaboration will bear the flowers of creation on the boundary where the walls of industries have been torn down. I believe at the core of this creative economy lies science technology and IT industry. The government will accelerate its efforts to take Korea’s science technologies to the global stage, and apply the technologies to all sectors with the goal of realizing the creative economy.”
The ministry of future creation and science will be at the center of delivering this new growth engine through the convergence of ICT industries. This new ministry, dubbed the future of Park’s administration, will play a pivotal role in economic growth alongside the launch of the new government. The ministry is prepared to take full charge of ICT-related policies scattered around the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and Korea Communications Commission. It will discover new growth engines in a variety of areas including science, education, culture, and content with the use of ICT. Kim Jong-hun, a nominee for the minister, who has served as a president of Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs, is known for taking an interest in original technologies as well as the convergence of ICT. After being nominated, he stated that, he would work assiduously to create new jobs with the integration of basic science and industry technologies into ICT.
In terms of the fruits borne from the “creation industries”, Park Geun-hye noted earlier that the government will distribute them evenly throughout the society to address Korea’s chronic social disparity issues. At a time when the economy is stuck in slow growth, securing a growth engine through ICT and science technologies is expected to stimulate the economy out of slow growth and simultaneously render the growth to improve the welfare of citizens.
