President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday visited Gumi and Pohang, two industrial cities in North Gyeongsang Province, to celebrate the launch of creative economy centers.

The centers for creative economy and innovation are the latest in a series of government-launched regional offices to help nurture startups and venture companies. Before her trip to Gumi and Pohang, the president had already visited three centers in Daegu, Daejeon and Jeonju over the last three months, despite her hectic schedule and the series of political storms swirling around her. Park’s frequent trips to regional centers show how much she cares about the projects and how much she wants to keep her creative economy drive alive.

Park’s vision of a creative economy is aimed at nurturing creative ideas from across society, assimilating them with ICT and science technology and other industries to eventually create new technologies, markets and jobs. Park believes that a creative economy could become a solution for emerging problems such as the deepening income inequality, slowing economic growth and rising youth unemployment.

Under her vision, the government plans to launch centers in 17 metropolitan cities and provinces nationwide by the end of June next year, in collaboration with conglomerates which have strong footholds in different regions.

The nation’s largest conglomerates, including Samsung Group, agreed to provide technical and financial assistance to these firms by signing partnerships with innovation centers. Samsung supports a center in Daegu, while SK Group is tied up with one in Daejeon and textile giant Hyosung launched a center in Jeonju to boost the carbon fiber industry in the region. Samsung also agreed to support the Gumi Center, while steel giant POSCO decided to launch a center in Pohang without the government’s support to nurture eco-friendly companies.

In Gumi, Park urged the center to create new ideas for businesses in the manufacturing industry-centered region and said that her creative economy vision would be the solution for reviving the industry, which is suffering under high competition with neighboring countries and aging facilities. “Industrial complexes should become centers that commercializes ideas,” Park said in her congratulatory speech. “Based on the Internet of Things, big data and 3-D printing, (the center) should increase productivity and create new businesses and products.”

Despite her support for the creative economy centers, it remains unclear how she will draw public interest and how much they will contribute to the national economy.

The president’s approval rating fell to a record low last week amid an influence-peddling scandal involving her former aide and the leak of presidential documents to the media.

Local economic research institutes have issued gloomy growth forecasts for Korea’s economy next year. The Korea Development Institute, a major state-run think tank, last week cut its growth projection for 2015 from 3.8 percent to 3.5 percent.

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)