South Korea has unveiled plans to utilise 300 trillion won ($234bn) in private investment to create what it describes as the world's largest semiconductor cluster in the Seoul metropolitan area.
The cluster will be located in the Gyeonggi province and completed by 2042, the trade and industry ministry (Motie) said on 15 March. The ministry also plans to build five high-tech semiconductor factories and attract up to 150 sub-manufacturers and fabless companies. Fabless firms design and sell semiconductor chips but do not manufacture the silicon wafers, or chips. The manufacturing is typically outsourced to a plant.
The cluster is also expected to be linked to existing production complexes — such as those in Goheung county, as well as Hwaseong, Pyeongtaek and Icheon cities — and Pangyo city, the "fabless valley".
The country hopes to nurture 10 fabless firms with sales over W1 trillion/yr, and plans to invest W3.2 trillion by 2030 in developing next-generation semiconductor technologies.
Motie also announced strategies to foster six domestic high-tech industries — semiconductors, displays, secondary batteries, biotechnology, future vehicles, and robots.
The government aims to have W550 trillion worth of private investment in the six industries by 2026. For the semiconductor industry, there is a planned private investment of W24 trillion for the construction of high-tech packaging bases. The public and private sectors will invest W20 trillion in technology related to secondary batteries, with the industry aiming to be number one globally by 2030. Motie is also eyeing a fivefold expansion in electric vehicle production, with no mention of a timeline.
South Korea also in February announced a strategy to cut import dependence on key metals, with Motie adding then that these materials have a "high ripple effect" on domestic high-tech industries.
There is another plan to create a national high-tech industrial belt, with the land ministry selecting 15 candidate sites for national industrial complexes. These complexes have a total size of 40.76mn m².
South Korea and Japan held a dialogue on export policies last week, with Japan agreeing to lift restrictions on exports of three key semiconductor components — hydrogen fluoride, fluorinated polyimide and photoresist — to South Korea. Motie said South Korea will in return withdraw the complaint it filed to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding the aforementioned restrictions.
Japan imposed the restrictions in July 2019, with Seoul filing the WTO complaint in September 2019. Japan accounted for 90pc of global fluorine polyimide and photoresist production, as well as 70pc of worldwide hydrogen fluoride output in 2019, according to South Korea's foreign affairs ministry.
