News has been announced that a global innovation special zone will be established, allowing domestic startups, hampered by regulations, to fully realize their growth potential. The government is focusing on establishing a foundation for domestic startups to grow into deep-tech unicorns by improving systems to meet global standards, from new product development to overseas expansion.

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced a plan to establish a global innovation special zone at the 33rd Foreign Economic Ministers' Meeting on the 8th. It is reported that within 2023, no more than three special zones will be designated and piloted, and it was announced that a total of 10 global innovation special zones will be established in each region by 2027.

The Global Innovation Special Zone is an expanded and reorganized system that enhances and reorganizes existing regulatory-free special zones. It refers to an area where global standards are applied in areas such as regulation, verification, certification, licensing, and insurance to develop new products and advance overseas in future technology fields.

As global technological competition in areas such as AI and deep tech intensifies, voices have been raised in the industry calling for innovation in regulatory-free special zones to enable flexible and rapid responses to rapid market changes. While competing countries are actively supporting the development of new products based on cutting-edge technology, there have been repeated criticisms that Korea's system is not keeping up with the technology, resulting in problems such as not being able to launch products into the market.

Accordingly, the government has rolled up its sleeves to build a global standard regulatory innovation ecosystem with the goal of creating 10 new global innovation special zones by 2027 and fostering 10 new deep-tech unicorn companies.

First, the Global Innovation Special Zone promotion tasks include: △Comprehensive implementation of negative regulations, △A verification environment that transcends borders and space, △Customized overseas certification support for exports from the planning stage, △Immediate system improvement upon proof of safety, and △Establishment of insurance exclusively for new industries such as cutting-edge products.

In addition, the plan is to support domestic startups' overseas market penetration and development of advanced products through a global innovation special zone support package that includes: △ accelerating overseas expansion based on public-private cooperation, △ supporting standard development to create an ecosystem for innovative products, and △ a global scale-up package to support overseas market entry.

Minister Lee Young said, “As global competition to secure cutting-edge technologies and markets intensifies, it is time to establish relevant systems to ensure that innovation is no longer hindered by regulations.” He added, “We will boldly reform regulations that do not conform to global standards and the times, and improve areas that hinder domestic companies from competing overseas to create a platform for opportunity.”