The Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on Feb. 26 unveiled its 2021 agenda focusing on becoming "the media hub of Asia," "the hub of spreading Hallyu (Korean Wave)" and "the hub of digital content for promoting Korea" on the occasion of KOCIS's 50th birthday. The photo shows the KOCIS emblem marking its golden anniversary. (KOCIS)

By Xu Aiying and Yoon Hee Young

The Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will open this year the Foreign Media Integrated Support Center in Seoul and its first Korea Center in New York.

KOCIS on Feb. 26 released its 2021 agenda focused on the agency becoming three major hubs: "the hub of Asian media," "the hub of spreading Hallyu (Korean Wave)" and "the hub of digital content for promoting Korea." This year marks the agency's 50th anniversary.

To achieve the first objective, KOCIS will expand its Foreign Press Center Korea, located at Korea Press Center in Seoul's Jung-gu District, to the Foreign Media Integrated Support Center. The new facility will have a visual studio, interview room and videoconferencing system, and the seating capacity of the media briefing room will also be expanded from 40 to 100.

Korea is a rising hub of global media, as seen in The New York Times planning to relocate part of its Hong Kong operations to Seoul and The Washington Post announcing the opening of a global breaking news hub in the capital.

KOCIS said in a statement, "Korea is on the verge of an era of 350 foreign correspondents," adding, "The Foreign Media Integrated Support Center will play a role in connecting government institutions and foreign media, as well as be able to effectively respond to the recent surge in foreign media coverage (of Korea)."

For the second goal, 32 Korean Cultural Centers (KCCs) in 27 countries will collectively serve as hubs of spreading Hallyu. The addition of Korea Centers is the result of the consolidation of KCCs with the overseas offices of the ministry affiliates Korea Tourism Organization and Korea Creative Content Agency. 

A Korea Center will open in New York in November and another will open in South Africa within this year. Sweden will get its own KCC next year.

For the third and final hub objective, Korea.net, the Korean government's leading multilingual portal, will also serve as a digital hub for promoting Korea and spreading Korean culture online. Accordingly, the addition of Indonesian will raise the number of languages served by the portal's news service to ten.

Korea.net will also expand the number of its YouTube channels from four to nine and double the number of K-influencers, or foreign specialists who promote Korea, from 600 to 1,200.

KOCIS Director Park Jung-Youl said, "To move forward over the next 50 years, KOCIS throughout the world this year will boost the status of Korean culture and spread a positive image of Korea."

xuaiy@korea.kr