Busan City Promotes Marine Fisheries Industry Startup and Investment Support Project

Total Project Cost of 2.2 Billion KRW Invested for This Year's Project

'Changuphae-Seongjanghae-Tujahae' 3-Stage Support Platform

Project Briefings from 14th to 16th, Applications Open from 28th

Busan City will invest a total project cost of 2.2 billion KRW to promote the ‘Marine Fisheries Industry Startup and Investment Support Project’ this year.

Busan City Hall.

The project is organized by the city and implemented by Busan Technopark.

This support project aims to discover prospective entrepreneurs and promising companies within the region that possess excellent fisheries technology, providing support for fisheries-specialized startups, corporate education, marketing, and more.

It is conducted annually to foster the fisheries industry as a future growth engine with global competitiveness.

As a result of last year’s support project, participating companies saw an average sales increase of 9.86% (83.6 billion KRW), 8 new companies were established, and 300 new jobs were created. Despite challenges such as the Fukushima contaminated water discharge, the project achieved high performance and received strong positive feedback from beneficiary companies.

This year, the city will provide broad, customized support throughout the entire corporate lifecycle from startups to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-sized companies, based on a three-stage support platform of ‘Startup-hae(海) - Growth-hae(海) - Investment-hae(海).’

▲ In the Startup-hae(海) stage, support is provided to prospective entrepreneurs and startups less than 7 years old, including incubating programs such as business funding support and accelerating programs such as consulting support.

▲ In the Growth-hae(海) stage, companies older than 7 years are supported with growth advancement programs such as product upgrades and commercialization funding, as well as programs supporting entry into distribution networks.

▲ In the Investment-hae(海) stage, promising companies for investment attraction are discovered and supported with investment briefing (IR) consulting and nurturing costs.

The city and Busan Technopark will hold regional project briefings three times from February 14 to 16, and applications for each support program can be submitted from February 28 according to the project announcement.

The programs are scheduled to be fully implemented starting in March, and detailed schedules and contents for each support project can be checked on the Busan Technopark website.

The regional project briefings will be held as follows: 1st session (February 14 at 4 PM) at Saha-gu Marine Bio Blue Food Center, 2nd session (February 15 at 2 PM) at Seo-gu Fisheries Processing Advanced Complex, and 3rd session (February 16 at 2 PM) at Haeundae CENTAP.

The city aims to support more than 68 companies through this project. Since small local companies face difficulties in securing funds for product and new technology development as well as talent acquisition, and there are limitations to support through existing central government competitions, this support project is expected to play a significant role in advancing Busan’s fisheries industry to the next level.

Kim Byung-gi, Director of the Marine Agriculture and Fisheries Bureau of Busan City, stated, “Compared to last year’s support project, the startup mentor linkage and support system to strengthen the capabilities of prospective entrepreneurs has been further enhanced.” He added, “In particular, through this support project, promising companies will be able to form networks with companies, investors, and related organizations via investment briefing (IR) sessions and forums, maximizing economic growth and learning effects from early startup to commercialization.” He continued, “We plan to continuously promote support projects to nurture local marine fisheries companies as future strategic industries, and actively share these project outcomes to expand this support project across the entire regional marine fisheries-related industry.”