President Park Geun-hye said the country must take advantage of its creative economy infrastructure, so that it can begin to bear fruit.

At the presidential office on Friday, Park sat down with some of the nation’s top business leaders including vice chairman of Samsung Group Lee Jae-yong and chairman of Hyundai Motor Group Chung Mong-koo.

The meeting was organized to celebrate the completion of a state project to build centers for creative economy and innovation, the 17th and final of which opened in Incheon on Wednesday.

During the meeting, Park praised the government’s current economic growth strategy based on the creative economy platform, saying it was drawing favorable assessments from all around the world.

She said, however, that the country needs to develop more concrete public-private collaboration models and produce more success stories.

The president also asked the companies partnering with the centers to play a more active role, urging them to hire more young people and work closely with small- and mid-sized enterprises.

The Park administration launched the project to open creative economy innovation centers last September.
The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, which oversees the management of the creative economy centers, said that 45 startups, less than seven year olds, were receiving assistance from the centers.
But, as of July 17, the number shot up more than five times to 250. The ministry said 125 small- and mid-sized companies are also getting assisted by the centers as of this month.
The number of meetings between those small companies and the partner companies for business consulting has also jumped more than five times.
The ministry said the centers have also attracted investment worth 29-point-nine billion won so far.
But, according to the ministry, still many startups and SMEs feel the assistance from the centers is insufficient. Low public awareness of those centers is also a problem: more than 70 percent of South Koreans don’t know what the centers do. The ministry said it will work hard to publicize these centers.