By Kim Seon Ah

The government has laid out plans to expand the foreign market for K-content to the Middle East, North America and Europe in a move to make the country a content powerhouse.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced plans to export K-content at the fourth meeting on export strategies on Feb. 23.

The culture ministry will raise the value of its K-content exports from USD 12.4 billion in 2021 to USD 25 billion by 2027 and thereby catapult Korea into fourth place as a content powerhouse following the U.S., China and Japan.

The ministry has established a "3E strategy": "Expansion" of the export market, "Extension" of the content industry, and the "Effect" of premium K-content.

First, it will actively cultivate new markets in the Middle East, Europe and North America to diversify export regions.

China, Taiwan and Hong Kong currently make up 36% of K-content exports and Japan, 15.4%.

North America accounts for 13.3%, and Europe 10.9% and other regions including the Middle East, 5.8%.

The government plans to host K-content expositions in the U.S. and U.K. this year and continuously introduce and promote Korean cultural products.

It will establish footholds for K-content in New York (U.S.), London (U.K.), Frankfurt (Germany), New Delhi (India) and Mexico City (Mexico).

The number of such footholds is currently 10 in nine countries, but that will rise to 15 in 13 countries. 

The government will utilize specialized strategies, such as investing KRW 9 billion in 30 enterprises so that they can develop popular console games for the North American and European markets.

It will also expand the K-content industry by supporting fields related to webtoons and OTT (over-the-top) platform services.

The government will also produce movies, TV series (dramas) and games based on webtoons and web-novels, and thus facilitate the secondary use of intellectual property.

It will invest USD 45.4 billion in a project supporting specialized OTT production, under the condition that producers and platforms share intellectual property, so that the small- and medium-sized enterprises can enjoy the profits of content success.

The government is hoping the growth of K-content will bring positive effects to related industries such as fashion, beauty, household electronics, information technology (IT) and construction.

It plans to hold a comprehensive Hallyu (Korean Wave) exhibition in Thailand this October and push K-content promotion abroad.

The government expects the sales of K-content exports to rise from the current KRW 13.7 trillion to KRW 200 trillion by 2027.

It also expects K-content consumer goods and tourism products sales to jump from the current USD 4.66 billion to USD 8 billion.

In a speech at the fourth conference on export strategies, President Yoon Suk Yeol said, "K-content’s global popularity, the resultant increase of export scale and comprehensive overall effects are yielding massive economic value."

"I ask the relevant government branches to do their best and add high-value to K-content by linking it with fashion, tourism, food and IT."

sofiakim218@korea.kr