Collaboration Structure with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety Expanded to the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 1st that it will promote the recruitment of the ‘2025 Si/Gun/Gu Local Industry Development Collaboration Project’ in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to respond to the crisis of local extinction.
This August, the government established the ‘Customized Package Support Plan for Population Declining Areas’ through the Economic Ministers’ Meeting, and expanded the collaborative structure of the ‘Si/Gun/Gu Local Industry Development Project (Regional Innovation Contest Project),’ which has been jointly promoted by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety since last year, to include the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
The ‘Si/Gun/Gu Local Industry Development Collaboration Project’ will be conducted targeting 107 local governments, including 89 population-declining areas and 18 areas of interest, as well as 84 local governments previously selected under the Rural Agreement.
In addition to the 22 ‘Regional Innovation Contest Project’ tasks preliminarily selected jointly with the Ministry of the Interior and Safety earlier this year, new tasks will be additionally discovered focusing on feasibility, effectiveness, and policy linkage, with a plan to select about 30 tasks in total.
When local governments lead the establishment of local extinction response strategies, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups will collaborate to support corporate assistance, infrastructure creation, and foreign workforce supply for the finally selected tasks.
The Ministry of Justice supports the supply of foreigners to the region by giving preferential treatment to the allocation of excellent foreign talents by region under the region-specific visa system. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety supports infrastructure necessary for business activities by linking the Local Extinction Response Fund.
Additionally, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs supports the expansion and linkage of front- and back-end support facilities for rural enterprises through the Rural Agreement, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups supports commercialization including resolving technical difficulties, demonstration and prototype production, certification, marketing, as well as business growth and foreign recruitment.
This year, local governments plan to discover high-growth local companies, establish local extinction response strategies, and promote sustainable development throughout the region.
Furthermore, to foster local industries and enterprises, the collaboration project business plan will be included in the regional industrial promotion plans established annually by cities and provinces, and a central council will be formed to manage performance jointly by ministries, ensuring the collaboration project is operated effectively.
Kim Woo-jung, Director of Regional Enterprise Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “In the situation where the crisis of local extinction is intensifying, it is an important task for the central and local governments to cooperate and promote regional development policies that demonstrate local autonomy,” adding, “The government will collaborate to reverse the trend in areas at risk of extinction and transform the paradigm of regional development policies.”
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