"If the U.S. Has MAGA, We Will Have MEGA"... Government to Create Four Mega Special Zones for Robots, Biotech and More

On the 15th, the Lee Jae-myung administration unveiled the "Mega Special Zone" as its key initiative to revive regional economies and foster national strategic industries. The Mega Special Zones will be granted top-level regulatory exemptions and a comprehensive policy support package that covers finance, taxation, human resources and research and development (R&D). In particular, the government plans to focus on four areas: robots, renewable energy, the biopharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, and AI self-driving cars.

Yoon Chang-ryeol, head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, presented the Mega Special Zone plan to support the Five Mega-Regions and Three Special Self-Governing Provinces Strategy at the first plenary meeting of the Regulatory Rationalization Committee, held at Cheong Wa Dae and chaired by President Lee Jae Myung. The Mega Special Zones are envisioned as large-scale core growth hubs linked to the Five Mega-Regions and Three Special Self-Governing Provinces Strategy, designed to drive regional economic growth and nurture national strategic industries. Yoon explained, "If the United States under Donald Trump had 'MAGA (Make America Great Again)', we should choose 'MEGA'."
First, the Mega Special Zones will establish a best-in-class regulatory environment through three types of regulatory exemptions, enabling companies to achieve results in a much freer setting.
Specifically, the government plans to improve existing regulations and set new standards through three tools: menu-style regulatory exemptions, demand-responsive regulatory deferment, and an upgraded Regulatory Sandbox.
Under the menu-style regulatory exemptions, the central government will pre-prepare a list of regulatory relaxation items that companies and local governments are likely to need. This will allow businesses and regions to select and apply regulatory exemptions quickly and easily.
The demand-responsive regulatory deferment will apply when a needed regulatory improvement is not on the menu. In such cases, companies or local governments can request changes directly, and after review, the government will reasonably suspend or ease the relevant rules to respond swiftly and flexibly to local and corporate needs. The upgraded Regulatory Sandbox will create an improved environment for large-scale demonstrations, with simplified procedures and shorter review periods, so that companies can test new technologies and services more quickly, more freely and over a wider area.
Yoon said, "If we make use of these three types of regulatory exemptions, factory permits will be processed more easily, and future technologies such as self-driving cars will be allowed at the level companies require." He stressed, "As a result, the Mega Special Zones will accelerate corporate innovation and give regional economies new engines of growth."

The Mega Special Zones will also receive a seven-part integrated support package covering fiscal support, finance, taxation, talent, infrastructure, technology start-ups and institutional support. Through this package, the government intends to provide strong investment incentives and build a solid foundation for corporate activity in each region.
Kim Jung-kwan, South Korea's Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy, stated, "We will introduce a special growth engine grant and have the government share the initial costs of capital investment." He added, "Focusing on key national universities as regional hubs, we will intensively nurture nine specialized colleges and convergence research institutes for regional strategic industries, and train more than 1,500 field-ready professionals every year."
The government also unveiled support plans for Mega Special Zones in four key sectors. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plans to allow the use of diverse raw data generated by robots in the robot Mega Special Zone, permit unmanned firefighting robots to operate on public roads, and allow outdoor advertising and commercial activities in parks for outdoor mobile robots.
The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment will support the renewable energy Mega Special Zone by fully allowing direct trading of renewable energy, liberalizing trading of self-generated renewable energy, and extending the period during which network charges are subsidized for direct transactions.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) plans to support the Mega Special Zone for the biopharmaceutical and biotechnology industry by easing review procedures and expanding eligibility requirements for advanced regenerative medicine treatments. It will also allow special provisions for decentralized clinical trials and work to establish a mega fund of around 1 trillion won.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport intends to support the AI self-driving car Mega Special Zone by delegating authority to grant temporary operation permits for self-driving vehicles, fostering specialized professionals for the autonomous driving industry, and providing large-scale driving data and Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) resources needed for training autonomous driving AI.
The designation process for a Mega Special Zone will proceed in four steps: companies and local governments first draw up a Mega Special Zone plan; local governments then apply for designation; the committee reviews and approves the zone plan; and finally, the Minister of Trade, Industry and Resources designates the zone. To this end, the government plans to work with the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea to enact the Special Act on Mega Regulatory Free Zones within this year and, once the law is in place, move quickly to designate the Mega Special Zones.
Through the Mega Special Zones, the government expects to attract anchor companies, partner firms and top talent that can drive regional economies, while clustering region-specific industries. In doing so, it aims to achieve both balanced regional growth under the Five Mega-Regions and Three Special Self-Governing Provinces Strategy and the development of national strategic industries.
syj@fnnews.com Seo Young-jun Reporter