DAEJEON — A forum making the case that Daejeon is the best location for a specialized cluster for defense materials, parts and equipment was held at the National Assembly. The city of Daejeon said a National Assembly forum was held on the 25th in the third seminar room of the Members' Office Building to discuss the need for and development direction of a specialized cluster for defense materials, parts and equipment, as part of the city's push to become South Korea's hub for the advanced defense industry. The forum was co-hosted by seven lawmakers from the Daejeon region.
Jeong Jae-won, head of KAIST's Eulji Research Institute, served as moderator, and Kang Young-joo, senior research fellow at the Daejeon Institute, delivered a keynote presentation on "A Leap Forward for the Sustainable Growth of K-Defense."
Panelists included Lee Kye-kwang, CEO of Sungjin Techwin and chairman of the Daejeon Defense Industry Cooperative; Jang Won-jun, professor at Jeonbuk National University; Kang Hwan-seok, former deputy head of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration; Cho Young-seok, research fellow at LIG D&A; Seok Jae-wang, chairman of the Korea National Defense Semiconductor Association; Sim Soon-hyung, head of the defense industry research team at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade; and Lee Chun-beom, vice chairman of the Chungcheong Forum for Locally Led Growth. They reviewed the competitiveness of Daejeon's defense industry and discussed measures for mutually beneficial cooperation between anchor companies and local small and medium-sized firms, as well as ways to build a multifaceted support system spanning testing, evaluation, demonstration and commercialization.
Daejeon is a center of the defense industry, home to key military agencies such as the Defense Acquisition Program Administration, the Army Training and Doctrine Command and the Army Logistics Command, along with research and development bases including the Agency for Defense Development, KAIST, Chungnam National University, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) and the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, as well as major defense companies.
The city plans to develop the specialized defense materials cluster to build a self-contained regional supply chain, in which local partner firms commercialize excellent technologies from government-funded research institutes and link them to the production systems of anchor companies.
Ji Young-han, Daejeon's vice mayor for political, economic and science affairs, stressed that "Daejeon is South Korea's leading innovation city, where defense capabilities and science and technology are concentrated, making it the optimal base for connecting advanced technology to industrial outcomes."
