Mr Jeongbae KIM
Deputy Minister for Culture and Arts Policy
Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
Republic of Korea

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,

Now, I'd like to explain to you the new cultural policy of the Republic of Korea. Our cultural policy focuses on four areas—expansion of culture enjoyment right that builds an embracing society, creation of the ecosystem for realisation of a fair society, innovative growth of culture development, and maintenance of peace in the Korean Peninsula by culture.

Firstly, we want to adopt inclusive policies to expand people's culture enjoyment right and let them have better economic and physical access to culture, sports and tourism. In order to achieve this, the Ministry sponsors cultural activity expenses by giving vacation bonus subsidy for small and medium enterprise (SME) workers, and by implementing tax deduction for culture-related expenses, such as entrance fee of museums, performances, art galleries, and book purchase expenses. We guarantee people's right to enjoy and create culture by providing a stability fund loan for artists and sports class vouchers for the disabled, and expanding support on the creative fund for artists, and for low-income youths to join various cultural events. As regards the expansion of leisure space for the public, we have, for example, opened the DMZ peace road and public sports centres for the disabled, and increased the number of cultural facilities such as museums, libraries and art galleries as well as public sports facilities.

Secondly, we hope to establish a fair society by creating a win-win cultural eco-system where creative work, distribution and consumption can be implemented in a fair manner. In order to achieve that, we are proposing laws that guarantee the freedom of artistic expression, introducing artists' employment insurance, and spreading a standard contract in order to cultivate fair contract practices. At the same time, we have tried to enhance fairness in the cultural industry by proposing laws on fair distribution, introducing a screen cap that prevents screen monopoly, increasing the distribution rate for music creators, making disclosure of management information mandatory, and establishing a disciplinary and investigation right for the copyright trust group.

Thirdly, the Ministry aims to promote innovative growth of the cultural industry through comprehensive support on funding, regulations and human resources, which establishes a foundation for growth of the whole industry. For that purpose, we will increase venture investment in the cultural industry, continue to invest on research and development (R&D), and accelerate growth of the future industry by utilising the 5G communications technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and hologram. Additionally, we intend to improve the regulations with regard to PC online games and VR. We will also update the current regulations in order to nurture new industries including  VR sports, tourism support services, small-sized tour guide businesses such as one-person guide and so on. We will promote growth for tourism and sports start-ups, and continue to create jobs in areas such as culture, tourism commentators and sports trainers as well.

Fourthly, we want to achieve culture-led peace in North and South Korea by continuing exchange among the Asian countries. Through the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting  involving North and South Korea, North Korea has participated in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Paralympics in 2018. This was the first time in which both North Korea and South Korea jointly took part in the Asian Games and the Asian Paralympics and won a medal. Both countries have also exchanged culture and sports personnel and conducted a joint research in Kaesong, North Korea.

As a responsible member of the international community, the Republic of Korea has been expanding exchange and co-operation in culture, tourism and sports by hosting the Korea-China-Japan Culture and Tourism Ministers' Meeting in August this year. We also hosted the Special Meeting of the ASEAN-Republic of Korea Ministers Responsible for Culture and Arts in October. As an effort to strengthen and promote cultural co-operation among the Asian countries, we have been establishing the Hub City of Asian Culture in Gwangju from 2004 to 2023, which involves the central and local governments as well as the public. This will be a huge turning point in cooperation and exchange among the Asian countries.

With policies prioritising inclusivity, fairness, innovation and peace, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism will enrich our people's lives domestically, and fulfil our responsibility toward the international community by strengthening mutual co-operation and exchange.

Thank you.