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| President Moon Jae-in poses with performers during the 5G commercialization event held at Olympic Park’s K Art Hall in southern Seoul on Monday. [YONHAP] |
At a ceremony commemorating the launch of 5G at the Olympic Park in southern Seoul on Monday, Moon vowed to develop the country as a global leader in the network and outlined a series of support measures to develop emerging industries and services that will incorporate the network.
“The government is pursuing a 5G strategy to create the world’s best 5G environment,” said Moon.
“Until 2026, we have set a goal to reach 15 percent of global market share, create 600,000 jobs and reach $73 billion in exports.”
Korea introduced the super-fast network on April 3. 5G opens the door for technologies that rely on large amounts of data being transferred at fast speeds with minimal latency, such as allowing self-driving cars to receive real-time sensor and traffic information.
Under the new plan, Korea aims to establish a nationwide 5G network by 2022 and invest 30 trillion won with the private sector in order to do so. It aims to create a 28 trillion won 5G market by 2022 and a 180 trillion won market by 2026.
Globally, 5G-related industries are expected to be worth 1,161 trillion won by 2026. China is currently preparing a testing environment for the new network at 30 cities.
In a bid to overtake other countries in 5G network development, the government said it would increase tax support, create a test bed for 5G services among other measures to develop five new services and 10 emerging manufacturing industries.
The five services are immersive content, smart factories, self-driving vehicles, smart cities and digital health care. The 10 new industries the government pledged to foster are network equipment, next-generation smartphones, virtual and augmented reality, wearable devices, smart surveillance cameras, drones, robots, vehicle to everything technology, data security and edge computing.
The government will provide tax credit support of 2 to 3 percent for 5G network investment until next year and has developed a 5G facilities investment program worth 10 trillion won through state-run banks until 2021. It has also created a 15 trillion won fund to support promising 5G-related start-ups.
Areas in Sejong and Busan have also been designated as smart cities that will operate under artificial intelligence data centers that incorporate the new network. The government plans to use the smart cities as test beds for new 5G services.
The government also expressed its commitment to net neutrality, a principle in which internet service providers treat internet communications equally and without discrimination, while adding that technological development will be prioritized.
Support for small to mid-size companies will also increase with plans to integrate 5G network solutions such as cloud services to 1,000 factories run by smaller companies until 2022.
The president expressed hopes that the new network will also lead to more jobs.
“New industries based on 5G will become a new opportunity for the youth and will become an opportunity for the next start-up boom in the country,” Moon said.
The government expects 190,000 jobs to be created through the new industries and 410,000 jobs through the services by 2026.
BY CHAE YUN-HWAN [chae.yunhwan@joongang.co.kr]