South Korea’s Ministry of ICT, Science, and Future Planning has invested 223.7 billion Korean won ($186.7 million) to create a broader metaverse ecosystem that will support the growth of corporate and digital content within the country.
The ministry wrote last week in an official statement that the pledged funds will be used to complete four major objectives in creating an “Expanded Virtual World” – an all-encompassing metaverse ecosystem.
The South Korean government agency intends to use its metaverse as a platform for expanding the virtual industrial growth of media, cities and education in the country. Hashed, a South Korean cypto ecosystem venture capital and incubator has invested in metaverse projects like The Sandbox and Decentraland.
Simon Kim, Hashed CEO commented that the new metaverse platform comes with a particular focus on catapulting commercial expansion by providing financial support to participants.
Bypassing the regulators
In an interview with Cointelegraph, Kim stated that there’s nothing wrong with the government providing funding as “the private sector is actively investing in the metaverse market. He continued, “It is the regulatory issue that the government should pay more attention to. In Korea, publishing of NFT games is prohibited, and token issuance is also prohibited.”
Content creators on the other than, will enjoy standard support on various fronts to attract the right talent and help build the platform. The ministry also mentioned that it will host community-oriented creative activities, a hackathon and a metaverse developer contest.
Head of communications and policy department at the ministry, Park Yungyu stated that the initiative to build a metaverse platform is part of the broader “Digital New Deal” in South Korea. The Digital New Deal is a set of policies that’s designed to foster the growth of digital technologies, said Yungyu.
He added, “It is important to create a world-class metaverse ecosystem as the starting point to intensively foster a new hyper-connected industry.”
This is a bold move for the South Korean government ever since it shared its blueprint for strengthening its economy’s metaverse ecosystem. The ministry also plans on using its metaverse to provide support for corporate growth by offering both technological development and financial assistance to a global audience as it believes there will be seamless access to South Korean companies over time.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
