"It's important for enterprises to make a preemptive investment, while it's also important to be prudent in a crisis," said President Lee Myung-bak. He particularly reiterated the importance of expanding civilian investment in the IT industry.
He made the remarks at the fifth session of the Presidential Council for Future and Vision held under his chairmanship on Sept. 2. During the council's policy briefing on future strategies for IT Korea, the government set out five key strategies to develop the IT industry as a future growth engine through convergence with other industries such as automobiles and shipbuilding.
A total amount of W189.3 trillion (US$152.3 billion) -- W141 trillion (US$11.3 billion) from state coffers and W175.2 (US$141 billion) from civilian investment -- will be spent to develop IT convergence applications, software, key IT solutions, communications, and the Internet over the next five years.
With the implementation of the five key IT strategies as momentum, a balanced development is expected to occur between various sectors in the IT industry such as manufacturing, software and services. If implemented successfully, this project will likely push up Korea's economic growth rate 0.5 percentage points by 2013.
