The Korea Creative Content Agency seeks to become an effective channel for the content related stakeholders in creating and developing projects aimed at local and overseas markets.

“Just a few years ago, the local market and audience were the prime target for the content creators. But, after Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ became a global phenomenon, a number of aspiring directors have started to prioritize the global market,” said KOCCA President Jo Hyun-rae at a press conference held in Seoul on Wednesday.

“Not only the creators, but the agency also needs to have a similar perspective and understand foreign content markets to be able to provide effective assistance. To this end KOCCA recently reorganized some of its divisions to facilitate efficient communication, response and decisions,“ Jo added.

While Korean contents in various fields saw great success this year, Jo suggested that there is more to be done.

Jo believes that Korean contents can develop to a higher level, if mutual understanding can be reached among the various stakeholders through active communication.

“Finding and creating intellectual property requires an enormous amount of effort from various personnel -- director, writer, production company, investors and more -- who have different aims and goals. If the creators appreciate the investors’ expectations and the investors recognize creators’ concerns, I think the current environment and market for investing in creative contents will certainly improve,” Jo said.

With a budget of 547.7 billion won ($461.5 billion) next year, a 5.1 percent increase from 2021, KOCCA will not only seek to become a communication channel for various stakeholders in the contents industry, but will also strengthen the competitiveness of Korean contents in the global IP industry.

“Though discovering a new IP is important, developing existing IP is an essential issue as well. The agency created a new IP division to comprehensively supervise the issues related to IP and copyrights in various fields -- games, webtoons, drama series and more,” Jo said.

The state-run content agency plans to hold online-offline IP business matching programs and IP-related exhibitions next year to give a boost to the content market.

“Korean contents face many hurdles in the global stage, such as manpower, infrastructure and money. And I wish to create a system that effectively tackles these issues, a system in which the agency identifies the needs of the various sectors of the content industry and has the power to support them,“ Jo said.

By Lee Si-jin (sj_lee@heraldcorp.com)