The financial authorities are pushing a plan to integrate and operate the Public Growth Fund, which will invest 150 trillion won in advanced strategic industries over the next five years, with existing policy funds. The move is aimed at preventing policy capital from concentrating in or dispersing across specific industries or corporations and improving the efficiency of capital management.
According to the financial authorities on the 15th, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) is reviewing a plan to integrate the Public Growth Fund with each ministry's parent funds. The Ministry of Science and ICT's "AI Innovation Fund" and the Ministry of Health and Welfare's "K-Bio Vaccine Fund" are representative examples. To prevent overlapping investments, the financial authorities are consulting with other ministries on a plan for the Public Growth Fund's investment review committee to check the investment status of each ministry's policy funds and share investment plans at the meeting of ministers for strengthening industrial competitiveness.
In the National Assembly and the investment industry, concerns about overlapping commitments and investments with existing policy funds have persisted since before the launch of the Public Growth Fund. With individual funds by ministry or the parent fund for small and midsize corporations already in operation, new commitments could disperse investment demand.
A representative area is the artificial intelligence (AI) industry. Early this year, the Ministry of Science and ICT decided to invest 632.14 billion won to drive the AI grand transition, and the sector that the Public Growth Fund, launched last week, plans to invest in the most is also AI (planned at 30 trillion won). The K-Bio Vaccine Fund created by the Ministry of Health and Welfare is likewise a fund that supports bio and vaccines, which will receive support through the Public Growth Fund.
However, existing policy funds will not be abolished and folded into the Public Growth Fund, and investments already approved for execution will proceed as planned. An official at the financial authorities said, "To address concerns about overlapping investments, operations will remain with each ministry as they are now, but we are designing governance to share investment plans and executed cases in advance."