'K-Defense New Industry Capital Gumi', Defense Companies Are Flocking In

Hanwha Systems Partners 30 Companies Investment Attraction Briefing

Defense Companies Qunion, NeonTech, Wooribyeol Nest in Gumi

On the 11th, Gumi City in Gyeongbuk held an investment attraction briefing session for Hanwha Systems and its partner companies at the Park Chung-hee Presidential History Museum to leap forward as the ‘K-Defense New Industry Capital, Gumi’.

Gumi City held an investment attraction briefing session on the 11th for Hanwha Systems and its partner companies.

The briefing session was attended by about 40 people, including Mayor Kim Jang-ho, Yang Tae-ho, Head of Hanwha Systems Gumi Plant, representatives of partner companies, and executives and employees.

Before the briefing, a tour of the industrial complexes from the 1st to the 5th in the Gumi National Industrial Complex was conducted for corporate officials, allowing them to directly experience excellent investment conditions such as 50 years of corporate support know-how, abundant industrial water supply, and stable power.

The city promised active investment by explaining the excellent defense industry ecosystem of Gumi, the core hinterland city of the new airport, corporate support systems, investment environment, and future development plans to 30 major Hanwha Systems partner companies located nationwide in the metropolitan, Gyeongnam, and Chungnam areas, along with administrative and financial support.

On this day, Wooribyeol (CEO Lee Jung-seok) signed an MOU with Gumi City to establish a new Gumi factory, creating a 270-pyeong scale production and testing line for defense electronic modules and systems. Established in 1992, Wooribyeol is a company aiming to become a top-tier enterprise preparing for the future space industry era by providing IT-based wired and wireless communication equipment and communication network solutions, contributing to national interests.

Selected for the defense innovation cluster project in April, Gumi City plans to invest a total of 49.9 billion KRW over five years starting in 2023 to support the growth of defense SMEs by ▲establishing an advanced defense industry promotion center ▲developing a specialized roadmap for unmanned and manned complex systems ▲building and operating a defense-specialized development research institute ▲supporting infrastructure such as defense-specialized research, testing, and demonstration ▲supporting technology development and commercialization related to the defense new industry ▲supporting defense startups and excellent civilian companies entering the defense sector, which is expected to greatly enhance the competitiveness of local defense companies.

Amid good news for K-defense and the Gumi defense industry, such as the imminent large-scale export of Cheongung-II to Saudi Arabia, the city is making efforts to revitalize the local defense ecosystem in line with the development of K-defense by holding investment attraction briefings for Hanwha Systems partner companies following the one with LIG Nex1 partner companies last October. As a result, defense companies such as Qunion, NeonTech, and Wooribyeol are continuously investing in Gumi.

In particular, Hanwha Systems, which attended this investment briefing, ranked 26th among the world’s top 100 defense companies in 2023 and plans to invest around 200 billion KRW and create 250 new jobs in Gumi by 2024. It is a representative K-defense company that has secured super-gap competitiveness in aerospace, surveillance and reconnaissance, and command and control fields through continuous R&D investment.

Mayor Kim Jang-ho said, “Gumi City has excellent conditions for corporate settlement, such as accessibility to the Daegu-Gyeongbuk Integrated New Airport and the establishment of advanced industrial clusters for defense and semiconductors,” adding, “We will do our best to prepare various investment policies and corporate support measures for sustainable regional economic development so that defense companies can settle in.”