KITA urges more support for exports of content

The Korea International Trade Association urged the government to expand its funding and loan support system to cover the entire content development industry in a bid to nurture the industry into the next export dynamo for the nation.

The government currently focuses its support on the publishing, broadcast and advertisement industries.

The association held a press conference to say that Korea’s trade is dominated by manufactured products like electronics and ships, which are mature industries. But content exports could be a bonanza.

“This year will be a turning point for Korea in expanding our export domain into the services sector,” said Kim Choon-shik, executive managing director of trade promotion at KITA. “As the government is introducing various policies to boost services and content industries, the trade association is also promoting cultural content as a core export booster in the services sector.”

The Korea Contents Financial Cooperative, a joint public and private sector fund established last year to raise about 6.8 billion won ($6.7 million), is too small to serve the entire cultural content industry, which is made up of small developers, said the association.

It said the cooperative should increase the amount by getting telecom operators and electronic device makers to contribute since they are potential beneficiaries of such exports.

According to a study by the Export-Import Bank of Korea, an increase in exports of cultural content worth $100 during the 2001-12 period boosted exports of related consumer devices an average of $412.

According to the Presidential Committee for Cultural Enrichment, the content industry had $5.1 billion in exports last year, and an average export growth rate of about 17 percent every year.

However, the amount of loans given to content developers only accounted for 4.8 percent of total corporate loans provided by Korean commercial banks last year.

BY kim ji-yoon [jiyoon.kim@joongang.co.kr]