KOFIC's 3-year plan to grow Korean film market to $1.3bn

The Korean Film Council (KOFIC) has announced a plan to expand the Korean film industry from its current size of KW 1.2 trillion(US$1.04billion) to KW1.5 trillion($1.3billion) by 2013. The plan aims to achieve its goal by overcoming the limits of Korean films' domestic market, advancing into global andactively developing future markets.

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By sector, the plan will expand the size of the local film production market - through such means as international co-productions and foreign productions' location shoots in Korea - to KW400 billion, and the exports of completed films and technical services to KW100 billion. Through stopping piracy and creating a legitimate market, KOFIC plans to expand the ancillary market to KW400 billion as well. Ultimately, KOFIC plans to have theatrical gross amount to KW1 trillion while ancillary markets and overseas exports will round off the number to a total of KW1.5 trillion.

In order for Korean films to advance overseas, the Korean film industry also needs to be world-class. Towards this end, KOFIC plans to develop the local productionsector's creativity and its ability to grow itself. This will be done by supporting project development as well as creative talent, diversity films and fine-tuning the distribution system.

KOFIC's plan especially emphasizes advancing into overseas markets. It plans to sign an agreement on co-production with China, support international co-productions business, expand the operations of the Asian Film Market, build a mega-sized global studio, and nurture key global human resources through the Korean Academy of Film Arts (KAFA). In order to do this, KOFIC will focus an investment of KW170 billion.

KOFIC's course of action is to seal a co-production agreement in connection with the South Korea-China Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Also, the organization will hold co-production business matching events so that Korean filmmakers can get overseas investments, and it will support the export of post-production services as well.

In order promote Korean locations, KOFIC will expand its locations incentive to 40% of production costs. Foreign feature theatrical films and TV drama series that shoot for ten or more days in South Korea, spending KW1 billion or more, will be eligible. Up to now, the locations incentive only covered 25% of costs.

Currently, KOFIC has an office in China but it will establish international film business centers in Japan and in Europe to attract and promote co-productions and location shoots.

Chairman of KOFIC, Kim Eui-suk said, "Having reached the limits of its domestic market, the only way the Korean film industry can survive is to move outwards. That is why global advancement is inevitable. We will put all of KOFIC's capabilities towards Korean films' advancement into overseas markets".