Gov’t seeks to create more ‘Pororos’

Pororo the penguin is already a beloved television character for Korean children. It’s now also the mascot of government aspirations to foster the country’s service sector into a global power.

Pororo, created nine years ago by Seoul-based animation studio Iconix Entertainment, has since been exported to 120 countries and generated 34.3 billion won in revenue last year alone.

The cartoons are responsible for creating hundreds of jobs, spawning a massive market for related merchandise, including toys, stationery, books and DVDs, which all add up to around 12 billion won in annual royalties for the studio.

Officials at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance are now declaring that their mission is to find and financially support the country’s next Pororo.

Globalization has long been an agenda for Korea’s service industry due to its small domestic market and cutthroat local competition. Some players, such as Iconix and other entertainment firms, have been successful overseas thanks to their market-specific strategies and the growing popularity of Korean pop culture and celebrities.

However, most service sector companies have lagged behind in stark contrast with the country’s export-juggernauts in cars, smartphones, memory chips and consumer electronics.

The ministry announced Wednesday a roadmap for helping service sector firms take the global leap. It identified a number of core areas including healthcare, education, science and technology, welfare services, publishing and film, which are to be prioritized in the development process.

“We picked these areas based on criteria on whether they have been exposed to global competition in the local market and are ready and willing to expand to foreign markets,’’ said a ministry official.

The ministry also chose target countries for each sector. For healthcare, it selected the United States, China, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Kazakhstan.

The United States is the biggest medical service market in the world where Korean institutions have been increasing their presence. The other four nations are open to foreign investment in this field to learn advanced medical technologies.

The targets for media content providers were identified as the United States, China, Japan, Germany and Thailand, which have big market demands and ranked high in the Network Readiness Index, an international indicator for information and telecommunications technologies.

The ministry believes the education sector should focus predominantly on the U.S. and Chinese markets, which have advanced technologies in that area, while engineering firms will eye Vietnamese and Chinese customers, which have big growth potential.

The government said the medical sector will focus on package services which combine pharmaceutical products, medical facilities and medical services. Content services will target games, characters, animation, music and broadcasting which have seen big demand. <The Korea Times/Kim Jae-won>

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