Kim Won: "Government's R&D Budget Support Shows Serious 'Honam Neglect'"

Gwangju, Jeonnam, Jeonbuk Honam Region Only 7.6%

Assemblyman Kim Won-i

Serious regional disparities have been revealed in the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy's research and development (R&D) budget support.

On the 7th, an analysis of the National Assembly audit data submitted by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to Kim Won-i, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea (Mokpo), confirmed that over the past five years, the total R&D budget support from the Ministry's dedicated agencies (Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology, Korea Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning, Korea Industrial Technology Promotion Association) amounted to 21.956 trillion KRW.

By year, the support was 3.8185 trillion KRW in 2020, 4.4043 trillion KRW in 2021, 4.8137 trillion KRW in 2022, 5.1477 trillion KRW last year, and 3.7716 trillion KRW as of August this year.

By region, the Seoul Capital Area (Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi) accounted for 44.1%, nearly half of the total, followed by the Gyeongsang region (Busan, Daegu, Ulsan, North Gyeongsang, South Gyeongsang) at 24.0%, and the Chungcheong region (Daejeon, Sejong, North Chungcheong, South Chungcheong) at 22.5%. In contrast, the Honam region (Gwangju, Jeonnam, Jeonbuk) received only 7.6%, and other areas (Gangwon, Jeju, etc.) just 1.8%.

Looking at the regional distribution from January to August this year, the top three areas were Gyeonggi with 1.0179 trillion KRW (27%), Seoul with 587.1 billion KRW (15.6%), and Daejeon with 328.4 billion KRW (8.7%).

In the Honam region, Jeonbuk ranked 10th with 127.2 billion KRW (3.4%), Jeonnam 13th with 84.9 billion KRW (2.3%), and Gwangju 14th with 67.1 billion KRW (1.8%), placing them in the lower tier.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy explained that R&D projects are conducted through a competitive public offering process, selecting participating institutions nationwide based on innovation capabilities and excellence.

Accordingly, urgent measures are needed to attract companies conducting research and development and to create jobs in the Honam region in order to receive government R&D budget support.

Assemblyman Kim stated, “Although the Yoon Seok-yeol administration has made creating livable local areas a national agenda, Honam is still neglected in national R&D projects and industrial policies,” emphasizing, “Bold government-level investments are necessary for regional industrial development, especially in specialized local clusters and opportunity development zones such as semiconductors and secondary batteries.”