Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC) said on the 16th that it signed a "K-content corporations financial support business agreement" with KB Kookmin Bank to foster the cultural content industry and revitalize the market.
The agreement was pursued to resolve the financial difficulties of content corporations that are struggling to raise funds due to rising production costs and increased demand for pre-production financing in the planning and development stages, and to establish a financial support foundation to invigorate the content ecosystem.
Under the agreement, KOTEC will supply guarantee fee support agreement guarantees totaling 50 billion won, based on KB Kookmin Bank's 1 billion won in guarantee fee support funds. KB Kookmin Bank plans to reduce the financial burden on K-content corporations by supporting 1.0 percentage point of the guarantee fee for up to two years.
Eligible recipients include cultural content production corporations and corporations engaged in leading content industries among new technology businesses that meet KOTEC's technology guarantee support requirements.
KOTEC Chairman Kim Jong-ho said, "As K-content is drawing global attention recently, domestic content production corporations are facing difficulties such as rising production costs," and added, "KOTEC will continue to work with related institutions to strengthen support for the global spread of K-content and the fostering of the content industry."
Meanwhile, since introducing the nation's first cultural industry completion guarantee system in 2009, KOTEC has supplied more than 1.4 trillion won in guarantees through Sep. Among the representative works it supported are the film The Roundup and the drama The Fiery Priest 2. This year, it plans to continue promoting financial support to strengthen K-content competitiveness by supplying 120 billion won in cultural industry completion guarantees.