Focus on Industrial Clusters

The 5th Industrial Clusters Day celebrated with ceremony and other events to key on roles and vision for future

The 5th Industrial Clusters Day ceremony took place on Nov. 17 at the Kim Dae-jung Center in Gwangju organized by the Korea Industrial Complex Corp. and with the support of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy and the Regional Development Council.
At the ceremony were some 500 people from the industrial complexes around Korea, government officials, legislators and academics, along with hundreds of business people representing firms with plants in about 80 industrial clusters. Reps. Kim Jae-kyun, Kim Young-jin and Kim Kyung-soo were among the legislators present at the ceremony joined by Chairman Park Bong-kyu of the Korea Industrial Complex Corp.
The event featured films tracing back the development of the industrial clusters in Korea especially their role in the nation’s economic growth and their future vision. Medals and citations were presented to those who made contributions to the growth of industrial clusters followed by performances to make the event colorful.
In the afternoon, following the opening ceremony, six industrial clusters around the country held events to learn each other’s success stories and share the knowledge created by the industrial complex policies and encourage their further success down the road.
The industrial clusters that introduced their success stories were the construction of fusion wide area clusters based on IT in the Capital area; the cluster in the Southeast area for the production of materials for shipbuilding and three-dimensional marketing support for the strategic industrial cluster; the cluster for the utilization of mini-cluster network for the application of light beams in the Honam area; the cluster for transformation to energy businesses with the parts material technologies as a base in the Daekyung area; the cluster for the development of automatic heart stimulus equipment to safeguard lives in the Gangwon area; and the cluster where the automatic wheel chairs were developed successfully in the Chungcheong area.
From 3 p.m. in the afternoon, a meeting to explain the major technologies for auto, electronic and electric and light industry and their market trends took place to share those information together with all the participants.
In the area of the auto industry, Director Hong Jun-hi moderated the discussion on the trends of auto industrial development at home, with the central subject on the development of hybrid, plug-in hybrid cars, and autos using electricity and fossil fuel and the development trends and the direction of the environmentally friendly cars abroad, in comparison with the domestic trends.
For the electronic and electric area, Director Noh Hwan-gun of Kolon Fashion moderated the discussion on the subject of “membrane material development directions and its industrial uses. Introduced were the development of membranes for fuel batteries, softwater, equipment separation and water desalination, among others and plans to expand their markets.
In the area of the mining, Robert Breault, chairman of the Arizona Mining Industry Association, talked about the development of the mining technology in Arizona and its directions in his speech. He introduced the mining industry in the State of Arizona and the mining technology development, along with the cluster activities among the local mining companies and the universities including the situation concerning building a global mining network.
Professor Chito Ishida of Chitose Science and Technology College in Chitose, Japan, explained the world’s photonics industry and its prospects, as well as in Japan, especially, with regard to market trends for each major products including display, light beam storage and sun beam module and photonics communication and derivative products.
Director Shin Chol-ho of the Center of Technology Industry of Korea Photonics Technology Institute, talked about the photonics cluster in Gwangju including its current situation and related industries.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy plans to show the projected expansion of cluster businesses in the industrial complexes through the occasion by telling the world the performance results from the various industrial clusters on the economic growth and their future vision to make its plan a success. nw

Chairman Park Bong-kyu of the Korea Industrial Complex Corp. is among the group of dignitaries clapping hands at a ceremony for the 5th Industrial Clusters Day held Nov. 17 at the Kim Dae-jung Center in Gwangju.