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MCST & KOCCA Held '2009 Korea Content Awards'

'Presentation on Strategies to Increase the Export of Culture & Tourism' MCST to Establish the Industrial Infrastructure and to Recognize Room for Improvement in System and Provide Policy Support
MCST to Establish 'Strategic Meeting to Support the Export of Culture & Tourism (Tentative)' Presided by the Minister

MCST Aims to Export USD 13.3 Billion in the Culture & Tourism Field

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Yu In-chon) and the Korea Creative Content Agency (President & CEO Lee Jae-woong) held the presentation on 'Strategies to Increase the Export of Culture and Tourism' and the '2009 Korea Content Awards' on December 15 at 10am at the Sangam-dong Nuritkum Square.

The Presentation on 'Strategies to Increase the Export of Culture and Tourism (hereafter "Presentation")' was held under the supervision of Yu In-chon, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Heads of relevant organizations, including the Korea Creative Content Agency, Korea Tourism Organization (President Lee Charm), Korea Copyright Commission (Chairman Lee Bo-kyung) and Korea Film Council (Chairman Cho Hee-moon), and persons that represent the culture and tourism field were present at the presentation.

The presentation was made based on the recognition that it is important for Korea to develop its service industry so as to promote and improve its economy and the key to developing the service industry lies in the increase of export of culture and tourism.

The Bank of Korea announced in October that the product balance of Korea for the third quarter of this year recorded a surplus of USD 40 billion. On the other hand, the balance for the service industry recorded a deficit of over USD 10 billion for the same period.

As the culture and tourism field is a high-added value, future-oriented service industry, it is said that the culture and tourism field has the potential of becoming the next-generation export engine that can improve the balance of the service industry.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism's strategies to promote the culture and tourism field as the next-generation export engine are summarized as follows: 1) establish an integrated system between organizations to support export, 2) increase the industrial infrastructure including finance and human resources, and 3) promote competitiveness of local content and tourism products.

To promote the culture and tourism field as the next-generation export engine, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will establish an integrated system between organizations to support export. To this end, the 'Strategic Meeting to Support the Export of Culture and Tourism (tentative)', supervised by the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism and participated by the heads of relevant organizations, will be established in 2010.

Participants of this meeting will recognize ways to improve the export system of each area including content, copyright and tourism, develop joint projects, and discuss on integrated marketing methods. The meeting will bring about the establishment of a strategy to support the export of each area of culture and tourism, including content, copyright and tourism.

The second strategy is to increase the industrial infrastructure, including finance and human resources, and provide a strategic policy support.

To apply this strategy, the Ministry will establish strategies and policies customized according to genre and region to advance into the international market. The Ministry also plans to actively find new markets. Also, it will increase the government's financial support for export by providing export financing and insurances, and strive to cultivate talents specializing in the export of content.

The third strategy is to promote competitiveness of local content and tourism products.

It is the Ministry's strategy to promote the 'creativity capacity of the integration-oriented content field' by increasing planning for and development of subject matter, supporting the development of future-oriented and integration-oriented content, cultivating human resources with creativity, and strengthening the research and development of CT(Culture Technology).

For example, the Ministry aims to receive orders of up to KRW 100 billion in overseas projects in the computer graphic field next year through support strategies such as an increase in the investments in 'Fund of Funds' for the computer graphics industry.

Also, the Ministry plans to 'promote tourist attractions by increasing the Korean contents. To do so, the Ministry will develop and intensively cultivate 10 competitive contents and proceed with projects to reproduce tourism contents that will enhance the attraction of already-existing tourism resources.

The Ministry will also develop Korean tourism stories and actively link them with cultural content.

Yu In-chon, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism said, "As the culture and tourism field is valuable as a next-generation export engine of Korea, the efficient operation of an integrated export system will become the foundation for the individually applied export policy to demonstrate synergy effects.

We hope that this system will promote the national brand of Korea and improve the balance of the service industry".

II. 2009 Korea Content Awards Held

Integrated Award Ceremony of 'Award for Contributors of Advancement of Content into the Overseas Market, 'Korea Comic, Animation and Character Awards' and 'Digital Content Awards'

Total of 42 Awards, including the President's Award

Big Bang & Wonder Girls Won Artist Award

The '2009 Korea Content Awards', hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (Minister Yu In-chon) and organized by the Korea Creative Content Agency (President & CEO Lee Jae-woong), was held in the morning of December 15 at Sangam-dong Nuritkum Square.

This award ceremony was held to encourage the content industry and to promote the interest of the citizens in the content industry by awarding outstanding contents.

The '2009 Korea Content Awards' is the first to integrate the 'Award for Contributors of Advancement of Content into the Overseas Market', 'Korea Comic, Animation and Character Awards' and 'Digital Content Awards'. As a result, the scale and authority of the Content Awards has been enhanced.

For the category of Contributors of the Advancement of Content into the Overseas Market, 2 President's Awards, 2 Prime Minister's Awards, 10 Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Awards, and 4 President of the Korea Creative Content Agency Awards were presented.

Kim Yun Jong, director in charge of game development of NeoPle Inc. received the President's Award for the development and operation of "Dungeon & Fighter", which gained popularity in the Asian market including China, and for recording an export of USD 54 million from July 2008 to June 2009.

CEO Han Kyung-ah of Show and Arts Inc. produced "Jump" and put the performance on stage in the UK, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Han was awarded the President's Award for contributing to the export of Korean performances and for promoting the image and recognition of Korea overseas since 2007.

Korea' s status as a leading country in online games is well demonstrated by the fact that 5 winners of the Award for the Contributors of the Advancement of Content into the Overseas Market come from the online game industry.

Kim Yun-jong, director in charge of game development of NeoPle (winner of the President's Award), Executive Director U Won-sik of NCSoft Corporation, Vice President Jo Gye-hyeon of Neowiz Games Corp., CEO Gwon I-hyeong of MGame (winners of the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Award) and CEO Hong Seong-ju of Onnet Co., Ltd. (winner of the President of the Korea Creative Content Agency's Award) are the awardees that well demonstrate Korea being a leading country in online games.

The newly found 'Award for Artists who have Advanced into the International Market' went to "Big Bang" of YG Entertainment (CEO Yang Min-seok) and 'Wonder Girls' of JYP Entertainment (CEO Jeong Uk). Wonder Girls have been at the center of attention with their single listed on the Billboard HOT 100.

For the 'Digital Content' category, 'Musicshake' of Silent Music Band Corp. was awarded the President's Award and 'Rhythm Star' of ANBSoft Co., Ltd. and Sigongmedia won the Prime Minister's Award.

'Musicshake', winner of the President's Award, is the world's first music UCC service. It is highly noted for providing service worldwide with the cooperation of Youtube.

3 President's Awards, 12 Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Awards, and 6 President of the Korea Creative Content Agency's Awards were given to the 'Comic, Animation and Character' category.

'Papepopo Rainbow' won the President's Award for comics, 'Noonbory and the Super 7' for animations, and 'Fresh World Cocomong' for characters.

'Papepopo Rainbow' was first released in 2002 and has sold over 2.2 million copies. It is the fourth book of the Papepopo series. The book is a best seller that has secured a broad class of readers with its lyrical drawings and touching writings.

'Noonbory and the Super 7' is a story of 7 fairies and villains. The animation adopts the five senses and intuition of readers to the story while providing readers with joy and morals. It was selected as a recipient of Star Project in 2006 and received support from the Korea Culture and Content Agency. The animation was aired in both Korea and the US simultaneously.

The 'Fresh World Cocomong' is a 3 dimensional character animation co-produced by Olive Studio (CEO Min Byung-chun) and On Media (CEO Kim Seong-su). Cocomong is a banana in a refrigerator that turned into a monkey. The character is currently acting as a child Goodwill Ambassador for 'World Vision', an international relief organization.

Lee Jae-woong, President & CEO of the Korea Creative Content Agency, said, "The Korea Content Awards is an integration of 3 different awards, and we hope that it will become the leading content award in Korea. We also hope that interest toward content will not only be promoted between those engaged in relevant businesses but also among the citizens of Korea".

By Lee Hyun-jung

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