- Participation of animation, webtoon, game, and immersive content companies, strengthening public-private network cooperation
- Listening to on-site feedback from cultural content companies… Seeking to identify new business opportunities and form a win-win consultative body
The ‘Suncheon City Animation & Webtoon Cluster Networking Day,’ organized by Suncheon City to strengthen the competitiveness of the local cultural content industry and build a cooperative network among companies, was successfully held at the Suncheon City Citizen Public Interest Activity Support Center for two days from September 7 to 8.
This event was organized to promote exchange among companies and stakeholders in the Suncheon City Animation & Webtoon Cluster, and to discover new business opportunities and explore directions for the development of existing businesses. The event was attended by approximately 50 people, including Choi Shin-cheol, Director of Strategic Planning, as well as representatives and officials from cluster tenant companies, such as Runosoft, Suncheon City’s first game company.
Sharing corporate best practices and listening to voices from the field
The event began with presentations of best practices by tenant companies in the Animation & Webtoon Cluster, followed by discussions on the current status of Suncheon City’s cultural content industry and future policy directions.
The tenant companies shared the experiences and achievements gained during the actual business process and, based on this, presented various opinions for the sustainable growth of the local cultural content industry.
Kim Bok-nam, CEO of Runosoft, who attended the event, shared corporate case studies and field experiences, suggesting that Suncheon needs to establish a foundation to grow the game industry alongside animation and webtoons.
In particular, for the sustainable growth of local content companies, it is urgent to establish an ecosystem where companies from various fields can connect and collaborate, moving beyond fragmented support for individual genres. To this end, multifaceted cooperation measures were proposed, including the activation of regular meetings and the establishment of a ‘convergence collaborative production support project’ capable of generating tangible synergy.
From policy proposals for 2027 to the formation of a win-win consultative body
During this networking day, discussions were also held regarding the policy direction for Suncheon City’s cultural content industry in 2027. Following this, opinions were exchanged with participating companies regarding the development of the cultural content industry, and on-site feedback was listened to for the identification of new projects and the improvement of existing ones.
Choi Shin-cheol, Director of the Strategic Planning Bureau of Suncheon City, emphasized that a key purpose of this Networking Day is to directly listen to the voices of businesses on the ground and reflect them in future policies and projects for the cultural content industry.
In particular, emphasis was placed on the importance of the administration directly listening to the difficulties and support needed by companies in the process of carrying out business, rather than unilaterally pushing forward with projects, and creating effective policies based on this.
Time was also set aside to directly listen to the difficulties companies are facing in the field. Suncheon City plans to reflect the opinions of businesses in future projects and policies to strengthen the support system that local companies can tangibly benefit from.
Aiming for a content industry ecosystem that connects regional IP and businesses
Suncheon City plans to utilize this event as a communication channel to reflect on-site opinions from the local cultural content industry into policy, going beyond simple exchanges between companies.
In particular, the fact that game companies and animation and webtoon firms based in Suncheon gathered in one place to share on-site opinions is expected to increase the potential for future inter-sectoral collaboration.
Suncheon City plans to continuously expand inter-company networks and drive the growth of local content companies while attracting external firms, while establishing a foundation for a convergent content industry capable of extending animation and webtoon IP into games and immersive content.
Attention is focused on whether Suncheon City, which is expanding its industrial territory from animation and webtoons to games and immersive content, can successfully establish itself as “Korea’s representative cultural content cluster hub” that drives the co-growth of companies and creators.
