[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Dong-wook] Lee Cheol-woo, Governor of Gyeongbuk Province, who is holding a relay on-site meeting tour of 23 cities and counties under the slogan "Let's Run Again, Gyeongbuk," visited Uiseong County on the 5th to brainstorm with local residents on measures to revitalize the local economy and then participated in a large-scale cleaning activity.
That afternoon, Governor Lee held a heated discussion on measures to revitalize the local economy at a meeting attended by about 120 people, including Kim Joo-soo, Mayor of Uiseong County, professors from related universities such as KAIST, Yeungnam University, and Kyungpook National University, representatives of companies such as SK Bioscience, and heads of local institutions and social organizations.
At the meeting, the roles and strategies of each institution to foster new growth industries such as cell culture materials as next-generation core industries were intensively discussed. Since 2016, Gyeongbuk Province and Uiseong County have been working with local universities to develop research and development and human resources for cell culture materials to foster the bio-material industry linked to the Andong vaccine industry.
Since 2017, architectural design has been underway for the construction of a corporate residence support facility in the Cheolpari area of Uiseong County with an investment of 9 billion KRW, and an industrial complex of about 230,000㎡ is being developed with an investment of 30 billion KRW to accommodate cell culture companies.
The cell culture industry produces culture media, culture medium additives, transport bags, and other core materials for biopharmaceuticals such as vaccines, new drugs, antibodies, and stem cell therapies. Recently, due to COVID-19, the global demand for therapeutics, vaccines, and bio-diagnostic devices has explosively increased, drawing attention as a future new industry leading the next generation.
Governor Lee Cheol-woo said at the meeting, "Over the past year, we deeply felt the sense of crisis that without self-reliance in materials and components due to Japan's export restrictions, there is no future for our economy," adding, "Cell culture materials, which have depended on imports so far, urgently need to be domestically produced from the perspective of 'securing material sovereignty,' and since our region has long prepared in advance, if linked with the vaccine industry cluster being established in Andong, it can be reborn as the center of the bio-material industry."
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