Culture Ministry allocates over 1 trillion won to K-content creation

A scene from the Netflix series ″Squid Game″ (2021) [NETFLIX]

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has decided to pour over 1.002 trillion won ($774 million) into the content industry next year, the first time for the industry budget to surpass 1 trillion won.

The newly settled budget is almost 18 percent higher than the budget that was allotted for this year and aims to promote K-content as a national projects.

“The Yoon Suk Yeol government will be offering its support in making Korea one of the world’s top four content countries as the content industry has become one of the new national growth engines and a core export industry,” Culture Minister Yu In-chon said in a press release Wednesday.

The Culture Ministry will work to boost the content sectors, including games, films, cartoons, webtoons and animations by allocating it with 15.4 billion won more than the current budget.

The game industry will receive 67.9 billion won for game production, overseas distribution and the development of gaming talents; film will receive 73.7 billion won; and the cartoon and webtoon industry will receive 25 billion won.

The animation sector will get 44.5 billion won, a 19.7-billion-won on-year increase, the biggest boost among the four sectors. The ministry hopes to expand age range of people who generally watch animations.

The Culture Ministry announced that it will be putting more emphasis on supporting the exports of K-content by establishing more overseas business centers, going from the current 15 to 25. Along with expanding overseas business branches, the ministry plans to open a new office in Tokyo, dedicated to supporting domestic companies as they establish content companies overseas.

It will also support new talent in the field, allocating some 25.1 billion won in support for startups and programs to help new companies enter overseas markets.

It also plans to nurture 250 content experts to boost the K-content industry and put 9.2 billion won toward producing AI content.

BY KIM JI-YE [kim.jiye@joongang.co.kr]