Drawing Korea’s Future with Digital Technology

written by 20105 Kim Sang Eun

 

On July 14^th, the Korean government announced that they would implement the Korean New Deal 2.0. This follows the Korean New Deal 1.0, which was announced in 2020 to overcome the pandemic situation caused by COVID-19.

 

What Is the Korean New Deal?

 

The need for the Korean New Deal emerged since Korea faced the task of overcoming the severe economic downturn. Korea also needed its structural transformation after the COVID-19 outbreak. 

 

The name of this policy came from the New Deal implemented by former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt. The Korean government used the same name to determine that they will effectively deal with the COVID-19 era and take the leading role in a global society through this policy.

 

The Korean New Deal 1.0 announced by the government is divided into four areas: Digital New Deal, Green New Deal, Human New Deal and Regional New Deal. Digital New Deal promotes digital innovation in Korea, and Green New Deal is a policy to spread renewable energy through society. Human New Deal and Regional New Deal aims to resolve social inequity in society and certain regions caused by COVID-19.

 

The entire Korean New Deal 2.0 aims to increase investment and job opportunities in these three areas through these detailed policies. 

 

The Digital New Deal was planned to overcome the economic crisis and create new job opportunities by focusing on Korea’s strength, ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) technology, into all industries. The Digital New Deal is divided into four detailed goals:

 

● Strengthening the digital system

● Digital transformation of educational infrastructure

● Fostering non-face-to-face businesses

● Digitizing city infrastructure

 

What Changed?

 

The Korean Digital New Deal 2.0 focuses on generalizing the outcomes obtained from the former one, which has achieved excellent results in major businesses such as 5G and AI. 

 

The government will support the active utilization of these digital infrastructures like Data Dam and 5G Highway through the Korean Digital New Deal 2.0. The policy also promotes the diffusion of the successful outcomes to diverse regions and industries, reflecting the characteristics of each and also promotes convergence between major digital technologies and other industries.

 

How Are People Reacting?

 

At the beginning of the Korean Digital New Deal implementation, most of the public praised it as a good strategy to turn the crisis caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 into an opportunity. It also showed promising results, such as achieving 8th place in global digital competitiveness. 

 

However, as various social problems and side effects such as reverse discrimination or another social inequity occurred in the process of implementing and applying the policy, public criticism has been raised. In particular, many questions were raised as to whether the policy was worth the budget invested since the government invested a large budget of 220 trillion won to the Korean New Deal 2.0.

 

Long-term projects aiming at changing the whole structure of society require more transparent and solid planning and implementation to match their scale. Hopefully, the Korean Digital New Deal 2.0 will be able to succeed as an important means to boost Korea.