By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Osong of North Chungcheong Province and Daegu's Shinseo district were chosen as the sites for a $5 billion medical complex.
Construction of the High Tech Medical Complex will start next year and will be completed around 2012, the Ministry for Health, Welfare and Family Affairs announced Monday.
The complex is just one of the government's ambitious projects to make Korea a regional medical equipment hub like the Houston Medical cluster, the Boston Bio Cluster and the San Diego Bio Cluster in the United States, and the Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto triangle in Japan.
The government expects global pharmaceutical companies to be housed inside the complex, which will continue development over the next three decades. Facilities will include high-tech centers for clinical research and development.
The complex could develop 16 new drugs and 18 new medical tools, in a bid to make Korea a global medical equipment powerhouse.
Inside the complex, one-stop business services will be provided as existing regulations are removed, a Seoul official said.
The High Tech Medical Complex Law was put into effect last year to boost the medical industry.
Last year, Korea accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the global medical equipment market. Output in this sector accounted for less than 1.7 percent of the economy.