The government and three shipbuilding companies (HD Korea Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries, and Hanwha Ocean) will join hands to invest 9 trillion won(around $6.7 billion) over the next five years to secure future super-gap technologies in the shipbuilding industry accroding to Yonhap News.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on the 5th that it launched the ‘K-Chosun Next Generation Initiative’, a platform for cooperation between the government and small and medium-sized enterprises, to discuss the direction of the great transformation of the shipbuilding industry, including such contents, and to review the export and pending strategies in the shipbuilding sector.
At the first meeting of the K-Shipbuilding Next Generation Initiative, the government, the three shipbuilding companies, and the Shipbuilding & Offshore Plant Association signed a ‘Joint Response Agreement to Secure the Competitiveness of K-Shipbuilding’.
Through the agreement, the government and the three shipbuilding companies will invest 9 trillion won over the next five years to secure super-gap technologies in the shipbuilding field.
In order to secure next-generation technologies from a mid- to long-term perspective, the public and private sectors will jointly establish the ‘Shipbuilding Industry Super Gap R&D Roadmap’ in the first half of this year.
Based on this, the company plans to develop the world’s first liquid hydrogen carrier by 2030 and lead the international standard for autonomous vessels.
The government will also establish a system to forecast the supply and demand of manpower in order to prevent production disruptions due to labor shortages.
Through the ‘Future Innovation Talent Training Center’ and the ‘Recruitment-linked Education Project for Job Seekers’, it plans to train 2,000 domestic shipbuilding professionals and production personnel every year.
In this regard, the three shipbuilding companies jointly decided to secure a system for introducing overseas manpower after training them locally by piloting the ‘Overseas Shipbuilding Manpower Cooperation Center’ in the first half of the year.
At the same time, the government decided to set up investment difficulties desks and on-site difficulties desks in the shipbuilding association and five regions across the country after reviewing the strategy for revitalizing orders and exports with the industry at this meeting.
Minister of Industry Ahn Duk-geun said, “The challenges faced by the domestic shipbuilding industry must be overcome through the team play of the public-private team, not just individual companies,” and emphasized that “the role of the shipbuilding industry is very important in achieving $700 billion in exports this year.”
Minister Ahn added, “We will regularize the initiative launched today to strengthen the competitiveness of K-Shipbuilding and continue to resolve export and investment difficulties.”
