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A joint bid committee launched to host the ISBB
DAEGU METROPOLITAN CITY - Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province and Ulsan launched their joint bid committee aimed at hosting the International Science and Business Belt (ISBB) with a ceremony held in a Gyeongju hotel on Jan. 25.
The launch came on the heels of a memorandum of understanding between each city and province being signed on Jan. 11, which entailed each city working together to host the science and business hub of the nation. The members of the committee will help pursue cooperation among the three regions, while promoting to the general public, lawmakers and central government officials the reasons why they have to host the ISBB.
The committee will be jointly headed by the mayors and governors of the three regions. It will also be composed of around 130 experts, including politicians, policymakers, professors, researchers, journalists and economists and female leaders. They received official letters of appointment during the ceremony where they also jointly read and signed their wish list for the central government.
A Daegu official said that the committee will submit an official application in March. He added that the three regional governments will do their best to pursue hosting the science hub while at the same time continuing to cooperate in their joint bid to get permission to build a new airport in the southeastern area of the nation.
The ISBB refers to a future science and business hub that will attract the cream of the crop from around the world by offering a research-friendly environment. The central government has pledged to invest about 3.55 trillion won until 2015 to push for this national development project that fits the paradigm currently shaping up based on a knowledge-based economy.
Daegu, North Gyeongsang Province and Ulsan are the best locations for the ISBB as the regions already have large-scale scientific research facilities, such as a synchrotron radiation accelerator and a proton accelerator, along with 58 research institutes, including DGIST and POSTEC. They are also home to the nation’s key industries, such as IT (Gumi), steel (Pohang), auto (Ulsan) and machinery (Changwon).
Rather than through the process of a public bid, the central government will designate a region to host the scientific hub by passing a special bill. It plans to enact a related enforcement ordinance in March before the National Science & Technology Council and the International Science Business Belt Promotion Council meet to deliberate on candidates. A region will be chosen during the first half and the overall blueprint for hub construction will be finalized by the end of December.
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