The Sejong Institute held the 4th Sejong Defense Forum under the theme of "The Way of the Rich and the Armed Forces - Strategies of the Five Great Powers" at the Seoul Seminar Room of Somerset Palace Hotel from 10:00 to 12:00 on April 20 (Wednesday). Kang Eun-ho, head of the Defense Services Agency, and Park Jun-soo, head of the Defense Industry Research Institute, presented their opinions under the chairmanship of Kim Jungsup, vice president of the Sejong Institute.
Kang Eun-ho, head of the Defense Services Agency, said that the defense industry in Korea has moved from a planned economic defense project to an industry with a market character since the launch of the Korea Agency. This was achieved through the introduction of a competition system, and he stressed that Korea should further expand its defense industry exports based on its strengths in the defense industry market. However, other industrialized countries are aggressively developing their own defense markets, and he explained that the Korean defense industry can only lend money to advanced countries if it opens up markets within 2-3 years.
Park Joon-soo, director of the Defense Industry Research Institute, who took charge of the second presentation, talked about the innovation ecosystem for the defense industry to develop. Recognizing that Korea's defense industry is a strong defense industry with its own best practice such as K-9 self-propelled artillery and basic training aircraft, it also needs to prepare for the next generation of Best Practice. In order to develop Korea's defense industry innovation ecosystem based on this, ① Not only domestic military procurement, but also efforts to create demand such as exports and promotion of domestic private start-ups, ② Expansion of supply capacity, ③ Construction of a virtuous cycle of supply and demand to reproduce ecosystems, ④ Using the Spin-around strategy intended from the perspective of defense strategy, ⑤ Avoiding excessive delays in business classification are necessary.
After the two presentations, the general discussion continued. In the general discussion, experts in the relevant fields, including defense industry-related companies, government officials, and the media, continued to discuss in depth.
Details of the plenary session can be found in the Korean report, and the entire forum video can be found on Sejong Institute YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch)?v=z1dcbveJLeQ).