IT Venture Essential to National Economy The Prudential Invest Forum 2006 was been held in the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul on November 16. In it, the former Minister Jin Daeje, who is now known as an investment strategist, said that the IT sector in the Korean industry has a share of 40% of GDP, and so that the steady growth of the IT industry is essential to the national economy in the long run. To this end, investment in IT ventures is absolutely necessary. In the keynote speech, former minister Jin said: "For this reason, I have decided to establish an investment company after leaving the public office." He said he was proud to be a preacher for IT investment. In fact, he has recently established Skylake Incuvest & Co., and succeeded in gathering over US$20 million through a so-called Jin Dae-je Fund. He explained: "Instead of simply seeking a profit in the short run, we plan to make an investment in the concept of 'Incuvest' [incubating investment], so that it may make a contribution to the promotion of IT industry." In particular, pointing out the necessity of intensive investment in the relatively weak industry such as embedded package software, digital contents and IT service, he added: "Korea is the number one producer in the memory, LCD, and mobile phone markets, but has only a market share of 2% in the software sector in the global market. Therefore, if we want to continue our national economic growth through the IT industry, we have to promote this sector intensively. If our IT industry continues to grow at the present rate, we will be able to accomplish US$20,000 per capita in 2008 and US$30,000 per person in 2015. To this end, more money in the private sector has to be invested in the IT industry."