Gov't seeks to revolutionzie manufacturing sector, foster public safety industries

The Middle Eastern countries President Park visited recently were also very much interested in Korea's advanced information and communications technology.To make the most of this opportunity, the government presented plans for jump-starting Korea's manufacturing and public safety industries.Choi You-sun reports. At Thursday's trade and investment meeting, President Park talked about revolutionizing the country's manufacturing sector.She said that for Korea to continue developing new growth engines overseas, it needs to come up with groundbreaking ways to bolster the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry and speed up the pace of innovation in the sector. Referring to how China and advanced economies have begun to threaten Korea's traditionally strong presence in the global auto and mobile markets, President Park said it's time for a full-fledged revolution of the "smart" industries.The government laid out a plan to speed up the president's so-called "manufacturing innovation three-point-oh" initiative, including a 900-million-dollar project to transform 10-thousand factories into "smart" factories by 2020.Smart factories apply state-of-the-art information and communications technology to the manufacturing process to maximize production and efficiency.The government and the private sector will spend another 900 million dollars on research and development of eight smart manufacturing technologies, including the Internet of Things, by 2017.Through these initiatives, the government expects Korea will record an export volume of one trillion dollars in 2024, and rank fourth globally in terms of manufacturing exports.President Park then referred to growing concerns over natural disasters and cyber security in the Middle East, China and the ASEAN region, adding that Korea needs to speed up efforts to dominate the global public safety market. In that regard, the government says it will invest 10 billion dollars into fostering Korea's public safety industri