The chief executives of the nation’s three mobile carriers ― KT Corp., SK Telecom and LG Uplus ― on Monday met with Choi Mun-kee, the minister of Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning, where they reiterated their earlier pledges to slash subscription fees and to act as key players in the creative economy drive.
The subscription fee cut is not new, and is a part of a bigger blueprint for phasing in a complete exemption of the fees by 2015.
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Science Minister Choi Mun-kee (second from left) and the three CEOs of Korea’s telecommunications firms ― Lee Sang-chul (left) of LG Uplus, Lee Suk-chae (second from right) of KT and Ha Sung-min of SK Telecom ― shake hands at a meeting in Seoul on Monday. (Yonhap News) |
More notable was Choi’s subtle but direct request to the three CEOs ― Lee Suk-chae, Ha Sung-min and Lee Sang-chul ― to assist the government as it navigates new paths for upholding the presidential drive for a fair and creative economy.
“Companies are one of the most significant factors in realizing a creative economy, and the government will do its best to cultivate an industrial ecosystem for promoting such corporate efforts,” Choi said in the hour-long meeting that marked the first between the minister and the three CEOs under the Park Geun-hye administration.
As part of the initiative, KT pursues integrated service businesses, such as bioinformatics, which utilizes the cloud infrastructure and other health care operations. KT, however, has yet to unleash schemes involving big money for the government’s creative economy drive.
SKT, on the other hand, is operating a center for supporting startups. It also has pledged to spend some 1.2 trillion won ($1.1 billion) over the next three years on integrating different facets of the information and communication technology industry to play its part in the government’s “creative economy” initiative.
LG Uplus, the smallest player in the field, offers products and services to help creating shared value. Such efforts include services for providing measuring and collection systems for the RFID-based food waste collecting plan newly launched by the government.
“It looks like more is being requested from the telecommunications sector,” said one industry watcher of the meeting.
By Kim Ji-hyun (
jemmie@heraldcorp.com)
