Vice Chair Kwon Dae-young of the Financial Services Commission visited the Daegu–North Gyeongsang region to attend a regional roundtable on the "Public Growth Fund and finance favoring local areas." More than 40% of the 150 trillion won Public Growth Fund is set to support advanced industries in the provinces, and Kwon emphasized, "I hope it will help commercialize technologies with potential."
On the 26th, Vice Chair Kwon visited the Daegu–North Gyeongsang region, held a regional roundtable on the "Public Growth Fund and finance favoring local areas," and then visited local advanced strategic industry companies. On the 27th, Kwon is scheduled to visit the Ulsan–South Gyeongsang region. Earlier, Lee Eog-weon, chair of the Financial Services Commission, visited the South Jeolla and Chungcheong regions for two days, from the 11th to the 12th.
At the on-site roundtable attended by about 200 people, including representatives of more than 60 advanced-industry companies and local government officials, Kwon said, "The Public Growth Fund will play a pivotal role in helping our economy make a fresh leap by crafting a new growth strategy for the next 20 years," adding, "It is important to shift to an advanced-industry ecosystem through investment in provincial areas that have traditionally hosted ecosystems focused on legacy flagship industries."
Kwon went on, "The Daegu–North Gyeongsang region shows competitiveness in advanced manufacturing, including defense and robots, as well as hydrogen and energy, and is being nurtured as an advanced strategic industry. By using the Public Growth Fund, which will inject more than 60 trillion won into regional industries over five years, we hope to reduce project cost burdens and help commercialize technologies with potential."
More than 40% (60 trillion won) of the 150 trillion won Public Growth Fund will be directed to provincial advanced industries. A total of 30 trillion won will go to AI, including AX transition, and more than 3.6 trillion won will support the defense industry. In particular, beginning this year, through a policy finance local support target system, separate from the Public Growth Fund, more than 106 trillion won in combined financing from four institutions—the Korea Development Bank (KDB), the Industrial Bank of Korea, the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT), and the Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC)—is also being pushed to support the provinces.
Kwon said, "The Public Growth Fund is not policy finance that stops at investment execution; it is a total solution and execution-oriented finance that manages and takes responsibility for follow-up measures after approval, including permits and regulatory consultations," adding, "We will inspect and manage the whole cycle from investment approval to actual fund execution and groundbreaking to accelerate the pace of execution."
On the day, the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) also announced a "regional hub bank-linked preferential guarantee program." KODIT, in collaboration with Daegu Metropolitan City and iM Bank, will implement a preferential guarantee program totaling 200 billion won for small and midsize enterprises in the Daegu–North Gyeongsang area.
First, iM Bank grants to KODIT for regional strategic industries, and the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) provides a total of 38 billion won in preferential products that lower guarantee fees and raise guarantee ratios. Daegu Metropolitan City will offer interest subsidies of up to 1.7 percentage points (p) on guaranteed loans to reduce local companies' expense burdens.
KODIT and iM Bank also said they plan to provide 144 billion won in special guarantees for regional base industries, regional mid-tier corporations, and carbon-free energy companies. Before and after the roundtable, Vice Chair Kwon visited Hanwha Systems, a defense company in Gumi, North Gyeongsang, and HD Hyundai Robotics, an industrial robot company in Daegu.
At the AX corporations roundtable held at HD Hyundai Robotics, corporations voiced concern in unison about the "intensifying competition in the robot market from China," noting that large-scale facility investment and next-generation robot technology development are needed simultaneously.
In particular, they agreed that if policy finance enhances medium- to long-term investment stability, they could push capacity expansion and overseas market entry with greater speed.
Kwon said, "The robot industry is a core sector directly tied to manufacturing innovation, and preemptive facility investment and research and development determine competitiveness," adding, "We will step up support to speed execution so that our corporations can seize opportunities in the global market."