President Park Geun-hye vowed Thursday that her government would establish centers across the nation to foster creative ideas of the public and further promote the creative economy initiative.

“The government will set up the actual creative economy towns along with one online, where people can share and cooperate to work on creative ideas,” President Park said at the opening ceremony of Creative Korea 2013, jointly hosted by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning and Korea’s major business associations on Thursday.

“Today’s event will serve as a venue to realize the ideas suggested on the ‘creative economy town’ website, and to expand the online success into reality,” Park said.

Since the website, on which the public can post their ideas for industrial products and businesses, was officially launched in September, around 3,800 ideas were suggested. Some of the ideas obtained patents and their prototypes were made.

She also vowed to help start-ups by providing them with more financial support and by removing regulations that hamper their creativity and innovation.

The government will also set up the “creative economy committee,” this month, which will be comprised of the government agencies, conglomerates and small companies, in order to discuss measures to lower regulations and provide necessary support for start-ups, Park said.

More than 1,000 participants including Minister of Strategy and Finance Hyun Oh-seok, Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning Choi Mun-kee, and Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Lee Dong-phil attended the opening ceremony at Coex in Seoul.

Products and services of Korea’s largest electronics firms including Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, and CJ E&M were displayed.

Xo Korea, which produces unmanned flying robots for surveillance, was one of the venture firms to display their unique technologies, embracing the concept of creative economy.

“Our surveillance flying robots have been made with domestic technologies and have better flight stability than those of foreign firms,” said Park Young-kwan, president of Xo Korea, showing his confidence in leading the creative economy.

By Kim Young-won, Shin Ji-hye

(wone0102@heraldcorp.com)

(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)