Gwangju City Collaborates with Local Companies Supplying GGM Production Parts for Mutual Growth

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City announced on the 18th that it will promote a win-win cooperation support project for local companies to stabilize the procurement of parts within the region for the compact SUV vehicles to be produced by Gwangju Global Motors (GGM).

The "Compact SUV Parts Commercialization Support Project" will be implemented with a total budget of 6 billion KRW over three phases starting this year, supporting the commercialization of automotive parts modules and providing customized integrated support for companies.

In particular, to successfully promote the Gwangju-type job, which was selected as the nation's first win-win regional job, the project supports the improvement of the quality of local automotive parts so that they can be supplied to finished car manufacturers such as Gwangju Global Motors Co., Ltd. The project is led by the Gwangju Green Car Promotion Agency, with participating organizations including the Korea Automotive Technology Institute and the Korea Photonics Technology Institute.

The module commercialization support project aims to strengthen technological competitiveness through win-win cooperation between first-tier and second- and third-tier partner companies. This year, on the 8th, five tasks involving 10 companies were selected: three in the body and chassis field, one in the interior field, and one in the seat field. Selected companies will receive 200 million KRW in project funding per task.

Additionally, the customized integrated support for parts companies is divided into five areas: ▲ improvement of manufacturing processes for low-margin, high-difficulty parts ▲ market expansion certification for converged electronic products ▲ discovery of technology convergence items for creating a converged ecosystem ▲ establishment of a knowledge-sharing platform for improving the structure of automotive parts companies ▲ marketing support for business diversification. Support companies will be recruited starting from the 20th, with companies selected and supported next month.

Once this project is fully underway, parts supplied by companies from other regions will be jointly developed and produced locally by second- and third-tier partners along with first-tier partners, which is expected to greatly contribute to improving corporate technological capabilities and the regional economy.

Son Kyung-jong, Director of the AI Industry Bureau of the city, said, "We expect the local automotive parts industry ecosystem to be further revitalized through this project," and added, "We will do our best to continuously promote support projects to strengthen the capabilities of local parts companies so that regional economic development and job creation can be achieved."