Jeonju City Makes All-Out Efforts to Attract Bio Industry Companies

Operation of “Bio Company Attraction Focus Week”

Jeonju City in North Jeolla Province is making every effort to attract companies in the bio sector, which is being highlighted as a national high-tech strategic industry and a future growth engine.

The city announced on the 24th that it will operate a “Bio Company Attraction Focus Week” in connection with the second round of recruitment for resident companies in the Jeonju Innovation Startup Hub Growth Building, scheduled for the first half of this year until July 14.

Jeonju Innovation Startup Hub view. Provided by Jeonju City

To this end, the city has prepared a company attraction proposal that reflects Jeonju’s unique business-friendly advanced bio ecosystem and plans to sequentially visit companies in the Seoul metropolitan area specializing in medical devices, virus therapeutics, and digital bio.

Additionally, the city will hold a company attraction briefing session next month to actively promote the relocation of headquarters, production facilities, and research institutes to Jeonju.

Since the launch of the 8th popularly elected administration, the city has consistently invested in building bio infrastructure and securing occupancy facilities, and has focused on creating a customized ecosystem for bio companies by supporting R&D in advanced bio fields and nurturing professional talent.

In particular, based on these efforts, the city has established the nation’s only full-cycle infrastructure supporting class 3 and 4 interventional medical devices, and has also set up a support system to enhance global innovation capabilities for medical devices using new materials such as carbon materials, which are Jeonju’s main industries.

Furthermore, following the opening of the Jeonju Advanced Venture Complex Knowledge Industry Center last year, the completion of the Industry-Academia Convergence Plaza at Jeonbuk National University is scheduled for the second half of this year, signaling a positive outlook for securing business-friendly occupancy spaces.

In addition, since last year, the city has secured additional budget for the “Advanced Bio Development R&D Support Project” being promoted with North Jeolla Special Self-Governing Province, aiming to discover and attract leading companies with core technologies in the bio sector and build a material-centered innovative medical industry ecosystem as envisioned by Jeonju.

The city is also focusing on establishing a system for nurturing excellent talent in the bio sector that can meet the demand for specialized personnel needed by local companies through the innovative medical device professional workforce development project.

A city official stated, “Jeonju City is fostering the bio industry as a new growth engine to revitalize the local economy. We will continue to accelerate efforts to attract capable bio companies and devote ourselves to supporting company relocation and settlement so that relocated companies can contribute to a virtuous cycle of youth settlement in the region.”

Meanwhile, last year the city attracted six companies in the advanced bio sector to the Jeonju Advanced Venture Complex. These companies are expected to create more than 30 new jobs this year alone in the process of expanding their core businesses and launching new projects, and are anticipated to play a leading role in revitalizing the local economy through the production and sale of high value-added medical products in the future.