A Study on the Development Device of Innovation Cluster and Investment to Free Economic Zone of Gwangyang Bay

광양만권 경제자유구역에의 투자유치와 혁신클러스터 구축방안

With the globalization of economy, there is keen competition among countries to be a logistics hub and companies are striving to be first in establishing logistics system centering on advantageous sites, especially airport and seaports, to perform supply, production and distribution. Korea competing with Northeast Asia countries is also working out strategies in order to make Korea penninsula a logistics center of Northeast Asia taking advantage of its geographical strength. Gwangyang port has designated as Free Economic Zone together with Pusan and Jinhae, Incheon from October 24th, 2003. However, the introduction of Free Economic Zone in Korea lagged behind other major countries and it has a lot of operational problems. Approximately 600 areas worldwide are designated and operated as a Free Economic Zone and Gwangyang port and its surrounding area has several points to be settled as one of FEZ. First one is its limited functions and related laws on Gwangyang Bay. Next is imperfection on development, investment and management system of the FEZ. Lack of promotion activities could be one of the problems. If we want to activate the FEZ, we must induce investment at Gwangyang Bay. This paper analyzes the above problems and presents various measures to activate Gwangyang Free Economic Zone by inducing investment for innovation cluster as follows Benchmarking to promote Gwangyang Free Economic Zone as follows Benchmarking other countries' system, governmental support, introduction & logistics functions, early development of the hinterland, supply ofeffective one-stop service, investment attraction into the area and diversified promotion & marketing activities.