The rapidly changing industrial environment driven by globalization has stimulated an intense competition not only on a country-level but also on a province-level. Recognizing the importance of the role of provinces as an important source of national competitiveness, the new government, which is promoting the establishment of a Northeast Asian economic hub, is engaged in an in-depth discussion on the significant role of the local governments in the project.

• Globalization of Economy
  Globalization, accelerated by the advent of information technology, has left almost no countries untouched, prompting fierce competition among them. At present, globalization, entailing cut-throat competition, has even penetrated into local economies to threaten their existence and to challenge their survival, making it impossible for them to sustain themselves without promoting consistent innovation and self-development.



• Development of Strategy for Emerging as Northeast Asia's Business Hub in the 21st Century
  Strategy for developing regional industrial policy has become extremely important as development industrial clusters have emerged as a key to establishing Northeast Asia's business hub, which is the participatory government's national vision and one of its 12 national agenda.



• Enhancement of Industrial Competitiveness of the Province
  The award is aimed at strengthening the industrial competitiveness of the province by encouraging the implementation of industry policy and promotion of economy by local governments, and at enhancing the image of and raising social awareness of local governments to further empower them to work together with the central government in all stages of industry policy ranging from planning to implementation to prevent redundant investments and to enhance transparency in usage of budget.



• Deterioration of Local Economy
  Many local economies have deteriorated or collapsed in the wake of the economic crisis in 1997, sparking awareness of the need to restructure the regional industry. There is at present a common recognition that without replacing the major industries in the provincial cities with a new knowledge-based industry, the imbalance between the metropolitan cities and provincial cities will exacerbate even more in the future.



• Planning and Systematic Implementation of Efficient Industry Policy
  With the promotion of regional economy emerging as a critical challenge, there is heightened concern over the possibility of redundant investments and inefficient promotion of industry policy by local governments. To resolve these problems, the capability of the local governments to plan and coordinate industrial development needs to be enhanced, and evaluation of their policy needs to start from the planning stage.



• Transparent and Professional Evaluation and Award
  The pool of regional competitiveness experts of IPS is comprised of professionals from different industries in each region who develop best practices in regional development through an objective and fair evaluation and who disseminate the performance of the local governments to the central government as well as the general public to increase social recognition of the superior competitiveness of the local governments.
  The Best Industrial Policy Award on Regional Economic Development awards provincial cities by evaluating all stages of the regional development ranging from planning to implementation and aims to show the development path of the provincial cities to further promote their development and to establish the foundation for enhancing national competitiveness.

1. Characteristics

2. Incentive for Award-Winners (preliminary)

4th Year (2006): Election Pledge Category

3rd Year (2005): Performance Category

2nd Year (2004): Implementation Category

1st Year (2003): Planning Category