South Korea’s Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) disclosed a $422.6 million i.e. around 560 billion Korean won worth of investment for the software industry. With the new investments, the South Korean government plans to nurture software development businesses, specialists and the all-around software sector in the country.Â
As per the Ministry of Science and ICT, they have established a goal of boosting the number of “100 billion clubs” companies to 250 in the next 5 years. At the same time, the country is expecting to foster 200,000 software and related sector professionals.
The Korean Ministry will utilize funds on the way for speeding up the digitization cycle. The Ministry intends to support more digital innovation within South Korea in the coming months. Apart from that, the Science Ministry is looking forward to sponsoring the software sector’s growth outside South Korea.Â
Over the years, the South Korean government has concentrated on adopting the latest technologies as well as financing small and medium-scale companies in the growing and evolving industries in South Korea. In 2018, the nation had an aggregate software production value of 55.5 trillion won with game development being one of the biggest backers at 11.9 trillion won.
Game development along with domestic software and hardware development is a prevalent part of South Korea’s monetary strengths. A trend among South Korean customers has been observed where they give more preference to indigenous software or hardware formulated by indigenous companies, unlike other nations’ populations.Â
The latest $422 million investments are set to power up the software sector, a very critical sector that decides the course of technological innovation and growth. New investments will ensure the improvement of educational institutes that can churn out improved and promising digital talent too.Â
According to the South Korean Ministry of Science and ICT, funding will also be furnished for the development and research of software sector technologies with great chances of going transnational. Direct support will be provided to software development projects from 2023 to 2025.Â
The Korean government has already determined some of its investment targets and these include collaboration tools, drugs and pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing industry software. A plan for funding universal software and technology from 2025 onwards has been devised by the South Korean government, implying software that can benefit multiple industries such as robots, automobiles, shipbuilding, urban air traffic and more will be encouraged.Â
In the following years, the Korean government’s focus will lie on getting hardware and software with low power consumption and optimization. The Science and ICT Ministry acknowledges that providing support like this would boost the competitiveness between industries.Â
Along with investment strategies, there are also commitments taken on by the South Korean government like the commitment to building 10,000 domestic Saas companies by 2026 which were just 1,100 in 2021. Companies are majorly Saas driven in current times.Â
The government is preparing to aid local Saas companies in marketing and sales work once they reach global status. Furthermore, South Korea schemes to launch global tech collaborative events with software sector and tech partners and build better connectivity with big multinational tech-based companies.Â