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At the 1st preparatory meeting for the National Briefing on the Creative Economy Agenda, hosted by the Korea Institute of Digital Finance on November 11 in Seoul, a creative economy planning committee, dedicated to the promotion of crowd funding, was officially set up, receiving unanimous backing from the 1st preparatory meeting’s attendees.
Holding its first meeting at HBL Law Firm in Gangnam-gu on the same day, the creative economy planning committee on crowd funding decided to spur up its efforts for crowd funding gaining a footing in South Korea and to get together every week in an effort to pull off the National Briefing on Creative Economy Agenda, which is scheduled to be co-hosted by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning of South Korea, the nation’s five leading economic organizations and Korea Institute of Digital Finance on December 12 through 15.
At the planning committee’s first meeting, presided over by Soo-dong Kim (the head of Korea Association of Science and Technology), Sung-kap Cho (the head of Korea Institute of Digital Finance), Dong-yun Kim (Chairman of Korea Finance Platform Co., Ltd.) and Soo-dong Kim (the head of Korea Association of Science and Technology) were elected as co-chairmen of the creative economy planning committee on crowd funding.
The creative economy planning committee on crowd funding consists of Chan-ki Min (the head of Korea Digital Finance Research Institute), Jae-soo Yang (President of Gyeonggi-do Information Industry Association (GIIA)), Kyo-kwang Hwang (Chairman of United Federation of Small Business Functional Association), Kyung-oc Lee (Chairman of Korea Social Network Association), Te-su Chun (Chairman of Return Press Association), Jae-hak Lee (President of Korea Micro Bio Ins), Professor Hyuck-joong Youn at Korea Polytechnic IV College, Peter Son (CEO of Dream City), Won-chan Cho (General Manager of HBL Law Firm) and Monica Youn-soo Chung (Publisher of Korea IT Times), etc. All the planning committee members pledged to proactively assist committee co-chairmen in paving the way for the successful introduction of crowd funding to South Korea.
Crowd funding, a new-concept investment method in which individuals network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to finance efforts initiated by other people or organizations, is agreeable to the Park Geun-hye government’s creative economy agenda, which aims to create a virtuous cycle (starting a business → growth → returns on investment (ROI) → reinvestment) in the South Korean venture ecosystem.
Above all, since crowd funding encourages people to start their own businesses, fosters more young entrepreneurs, creates jobs and is capable of breaking the vicious cycle of a pullback in capital injections into newly-created venture firms leading to a fall in the number of new startups, crowd funding is expected to serve as a new financing means that tallies best with the government’s creative economy agenda.
“There is a limit to the government’s funding for businesses. Once crowd funding puts down root in this nation, numerous companies with great growth potential will be crowd funded and nurtured by the public,” said Sung-kap Cho, Co-Chairman of the creative economy planning committee on crowd funding.
