KOFIC Announces New Measures to Promote Film Industry

The Korea Film Commission (KOFIC) announced its new policies for promoting Korean films in the 21st century, revealing that it would increase the domestic market share of Korean films to over 50 percent from 36 percent at present by the year 2004. It also announced that it planned to raise the annual viewing frequency from the current 0.86 (equivalent to 42 million viewers) times to 1.72 (84 million) through its new policies. As part of its efforts, KOFIC will support more than 100 commercial movies by major companies, and over 50 long films produced by independent companies. In addition, it plans to export Korea films worth up to $50 million, 17 times more than the value for this year.

KOFIC will support the establishment of movie theatres showing only Korea Films and Art Films, and will also set up theatres for short films only. The budget allotted for this project will amount to about $198 million. The Commission is planning to earmark $147 million from the budget for promoting the films through 2003. In the first year of executing the new plan the budget is expected to about $66 million.

by Lee Young-ki