Carbon fibre innovation centre opens in Korea

December 17, 2014 - South Korea

South Korea-based Hyosung Group has established a carbon fibre innovation centre in North Jeolla province, with support from the Korean and North Jeolla governments, the Korea Bizwire reported.

The ‘Jeonbuk Creative Economy and Innovation Centre’ is the third centre opened this year in collaboration with conglomerates. Hyosung leads the project by investing 1.24 trillion won, while the Central and provincial governments support it with an investment of more than 15 billion won.

The world’s best research and development cluster for carbon fibre is established in North Jeolla, as the material draws attention as a future fabric, which is much stronger and lighter than steel.

For developing bio and agriculture business, the innovation centre will help boost R&D efforts, connecting 14 bio and agriculture institutes for co-research and technology transfers.

The centre will also focus on combining technology and traditional culture, such as hanji (Korean traditional paper) crafting, and make it into new commercial product.

All business ideas and entrepreneurship assistance discussed and developed at the North Jeolla innovation centre will be shared online to the creative economy community to help new entrepreneurs to find business partners and mentors outside the province.

Hyosung Group and the Government have built the centre for start-ups within the factory to nurture 20 small companies in the carbon fibre sector. With the start-ups, it will create a carbon fibre eco-system encompassing from carbon fibre materials, to parts, to end products.

In the presence of President Park Geun-hye, Hyosung announced its carbon fibre development plan at the opening ceremony of a Creative Economy Innovation Centre in Jeonju city in the province. With support from the Government, it plans to boost the carbon fibre industry to export 10 trillion won carbon fibre products by 2020. It plans to establish 17 carbon innovation centres nationwide with major companies in mentorship roles. (GK)