By 2025, Preliminary Unicorns Increase from 8 to 12, Seoul-Style Beauty Industry Jobs Expand from 60,000 to 100,000
100 Billion Won 'Beauty Industry Dedicated Fund' for Promising SMEs... Accelerating Overseas Expansion
[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government has established the basic plan for 'Global Beauty Industry Hub, Seoul' to leap forward as an emotional and attractive city based on the beauty, fashion, and design industries, investing 204 billion KRW over five years until 2026. The plan aims to strengthen the competitiveness of Seoul-style beauty industry by increasing the number of beauty and fashion prospective unicorn companies from the current 8 to 12 by 2025, expanding the number of the world's top 100 beauty and fashion companies from 4 to 6, and based on this, expanding Seoul-style beauty industry jobs from around 60,000 to 100,000.
On the 4th, Seoul announced that through this basic plan, the scope of the beauty industry will be expanded beyond traditional beauty sectors such as cosmetics and hair & beauty to include fashion, design, and beauty tech fields, and by integrating K-pop, K-drama, and other K-content and tourism, it aims to concretize strategies to elevate Korea’s beauty itself into a competitive product.
The basic plan will be promoted through 11 core tasks across four major areas. The four areas are ▲ Establishing a global beauty industry base and cluster ▲ Creating a virtuous industrial ecosystem and high value-added transformation ▲ Strengthening marketing and expanding global advancement ▲ Maximizing the attractiveness of Beauty City Seoul through K-culture convergence.
Dongdaemun, the center of the domestic fashion industry and leading the design industry centered around DDP, will be developed as a ‘core base for beauty and fashion industries.’ Additionally, six areas where beauty commercial districts have formed will be nurtured as ‘six major trend bases’ in a sub-base concept. In July, a ‘Beauty Complex Cultural Space (tentative name)’ will open at Dongdaemun DDP with the keywords ‘Smart, Digital, Eco.’ It will be a space where visitors can experience beauty-related content and lifestyle trends. Next year, near DDP, the ‘Seoul Beauty Fashion Hub’ will be established where stakeholders from various sectors such as beauty, fashion, and design can gather and communicate, enhancing inter-industry synergy.
The city plans to designate the Dongdaemun Fashion Town area as a ‘Beauty Fashion Convergence Specific Development Promotion District’ within the year, providing incentives such as relaxed building regulations, financial loans, and tax reductions to strategically foster the beauty and fashion industries. In the mid to long term, based on the '2040 Seoul Urban Basic Plan,' the Dongdaemun area will be reorganized to improve the local landscape. Furthermore, bio and medical device industry bases such as Hongneung and G-Valley will be activated as ‘Beauty Convergence R&D Bases’ to complete the ‘Global Beauty Industry Cluster.’
Starting next year, a dedicated beauty industry development fund exceeding 100 billion KRW will be established, and nurturing beauty startups and industry professionals who will lead the future beauty industry will be intensified. The beauty industry fund will focus on venture capital investment in small and medium-sized enterprises, early-stage startups, and young startups in the beauty industry that have reached survival limits due to lack of credit or collateral and cannot receive financial support from general financial institutions.
Considering the characteristics of the beauty industry, which has a higher proportion of small businesses and a large competitiveness gap between large and small companies compared to other industries, ‘open innovation’ based on win-win cooperation between large and small companies will be actively promoted. More than 10 promising beauty startups will be discovered annually and supported to engage in technology exchange and collaboration with large companies to enhance the competitiveness of promising SMEs and startups. Additionally, specialized personnel focused on the beauty and fashion industries will be intensively trained. Each year, 200 professionals such as brand managers and product planners, who are in high demand on-site, will be trained, and 50 influencers will be nurtured annually in line with marketing trends where influencers’ impact has grown due to SNS activation.
Support will also be provided using available Seoul city corporate support platforms to accelerate overseas expansion. Seoul aims to strengthen the market competitiveness of small and medium beauty companies and ultimately enhance the urban brand value of Beauty City Seoul. Moreover, based on K-culture such as K-movie, K-pop, and K-drama, the first ‘Seoul Beauty Week’ will be held this October. It is a beauty expo that promotes Seoul’s beauty and fashion industry and creates business opportunities for promising SMEs, leveraging the globally increased favorability toward K-culture.
Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said, “We will expand the scope of the beauty industry and integrate Seoul’s charm and strengths with globally recognized K-content and tourism to leap Seoul into a global beauty industry hub. We will do our best to develop Seoul’s beauty and fashion industry ecosystem, turn it into a tourism resource, establish a virtuous cycle system with other industries, and ensure these effects spread to job creation and economic revitalization.”
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
