Suncheon City and Suncheon Jeil University Sign Agreement to Develop Local Webtoon and Animation Industry

Expansion of Exchanges to Strengthen the Competitiveness of Local Webtoon and Animation Cultural Industry Ecosystems

[Suncheon=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Hyung-kwon] Suncheon City, Jeollanam-do (Mayor Heo Seok) announced on the 28th that it signed a "Business Agreement for Establishing a Cooperative System for the Local Webtoon and Animation Cultural Industry" with Suncheon Jeil University (President Seong Dong-je) the day before.

This business agreement was made through consultations between the two institutions to strengthen the competitiveness of the Suncheon webtoon and animation cultural industry ecosystem and to enhance the status of the comic city, coinciding with the establishment of the Webtoon Animation Department at Jeil University next year.

In particular, the establishment of the Webtoon Animation Department at Suncheon Jeil University follows the Department of Comic Animation at Suncheon University (established in 1996) and the Webtoon Content Department at Cheongam University (established in 2021), making the city the first and only city in Korea where all local universities have specialized departments in webtoon and animation.

Through this agreement, the two institutions agreed to share a vision for the future of balanced regional development of the webtoon and animation industry, cooperate mutually to nurture creative talents in the new metaverse industry field, and create youth jobs in the future-oriented convergence content industry.

The main contents of the agreement include ▲ expanding human exchanges to strengthen the infrastructure capabilities of the local webtoon and animation cultural industry ▲ building networks to enhance the competitiveness of the local webtoon and animation cultural industry ▲ strengthening a virtuous cycle ecosystem to create local jobs in the future-oriented convergence content industry ▲ holding joint academic conferences for global branding of Suncheon City as a comic city ▲ developing and operating joint educational programs to nurture creative talents in webtoon and animation content ▲ developing and operating joint educational programs to train professionals in the future metaverse new industry field.

Mayor Heo Seok of Suncheon said, "I hope that through this agreement, Suncheon City will contribute to the national balanced development of the digital content industry together with local universities and lead a virtuous cycle model of the local webtoon and animation cultural industry ecosystem." He added, "In line with this, we will actively prepare and promote support measures for the joint development and coexistence of local universities."