▶ Downtown cluster launches in earnest… With a significantly expanded budget, the city is transforming into a mecca for animation and webtoons.
Accelerating the establishment of a “South Coast Content Hub” through the management of a KRW 98 billion strategic fund and support for settlement.
Suncheon City successfully held a content company investment attraction briefing session at the Suncheon Citizen Public Interest Activity Support Center at 2:00 PM on February 26th.
This briefing session was designed to support the growth of content companies relocating to Suncheon and to attract additional companies seeking to join the downtown cluster. The event drew significant interest, with approximately 100 attendees representing 30 Suncheon-area companies and 50 companies from the metropolitan area and beyond.
Accelerating the creation of a content ecosystem and strengthening investment and occupancy links.
The city presented its content support policies for each sector, leveraging a budget doubled from the previous year, and the operational direction of the 98 billion won Cultural Content Strategic Fund. Focusing on the stable establishment of businesses and the creation of an industrial ecosystem, the city also shared its comprehensive support plan, which included support for employment, settlement expenses, and content production costs, as well as hosting a comprehensive B2C and B2B content festival. Furthermore, in accordance with the fund’s operational plan, one-on-one investment consultations were held between managers and companies, divided into two areas: IP and new technology.
Following the briefing session, a tour of the downtown cluster was held for companies interested in relocating. The tour included 35 buildings and 63 vacant offices in the downtown area, selected through a pre-selection process. Through this tour, the company plans to identify corporate needs and, in the future, match companies with available space to provide office space.
Suncheon’s downtown area is rapidly transforming into a content cluster.
Suncheon City is promoting the development of the cultural content industry as one of the ‘three major economic axes’ of the 8th elected government, and is actively developing an animation and webtoon cluster in the downtown area.
Led by the “Global Webtoon Hub Center,” which houses webtoon anchors Kenaz and Ono Korea, approximately 30 content companies spanning animation, webtoon, and publishing have signed investment agreements and are gradually moving into the downtown creative and production base (Want’s Land). Furthermore, animation anchor Locus has relocated its headquarters to the Wetland Center Cluster, located on National Garden Road 1, spearheading the development of a local animation cluster.
Companies moving into the city will be provided with a variety of settlement support measures, including low rents, subsidies for employment, settling expenses, and content production. The city plans to foster a virtuous cycle in the content industry ecosystem by expanding industry-academia collaboration with local universities and fostering youth talent and connecting them with employment opportunities.
City officials said, “We expect that this briefing session will be an opportunity for companies to establish concrete plans for project development, investment, and hiring, as well as for industrial structure design,” and added, “We will actively support the creation of a content hub in the southern coastal region where companies can realize their dreams in the content industry without having to go to the metropolitan area.”
