Busan Metropolitan City is giving an impetus to the creation of its “blockchain special zone.” This comes from the southeastern city’s judgment that Busan’s major industries like finance, logistics and tourism need blockchain technology and there must be some projects to lure young entrepreneurs to Busan.

In a panel discussion on “Busan’s blockchain vision and blueprint” held at the National Assembly by the Oryukdo Institute and Block Media Thursday, Yoo Jae-soo, vice Busan mayor for economic affairs, gave reasons why Busan should be chosen as a blockchain special zone. “Young people had a tendency to leave Busan but some young businesspeople are looking at Busan again after the city’s blockchain special zone news,” Yoo said. “Busan, which is famous for finance and logistics, has been designated as a model city for smart city projects with Sejong City. Busan has to create an ecosystem for information and communications technology based on this.”

Yoo said Korea’s blockchain-focused companies must have more opportunities to raise funds for corporate foundation. “Since few startups can succeed in business, they have no reason to be criticized merely because coin prices have declined. The door should be open for blockchain startups to raise funds,” said Yoo, adding that “we need to create a comprehensive ecosystem for digital assets like ICO (initial coin offering) projects and cryptocurrency exchanges.”

Busan needs supportive laws and means of supplementation to build its own regulation-free blockchain special zone. Yoo mentioned special laws concerning regulation-free zones and regional development. If Busan is designated as an international free zone, the city will be free from existing regulations governing regional projects.

However, if regulation is exempted, this could cause problems. So it’s important to clarify who should be responsible. Busan proposed ways to restrict business if projects utilizing new technology do harm to people’s lives and safety and incur losses to consumers. “We will push for blockchain projects in finance, logistics, tourism, digital voucher and other detailed areas only after taking into consideration all possible problems,” Yoo said.

Kim Hang-jin, director of DAYLI Blockchain that developed the blockchain platform ICON, said, “Blockchain teams that went abroad need places to embrace them. Busan should be the location for reshoring.” Reshoring is the process of bringing companies that went abroad back to the country by offering various tax benefits and deregulation.

Chung Seung-hwa, head of the Global Securities and Fund Division at the Korea Securities Depository, suggested ways to exploit blockchain technology in Busan by stages. At first, Busan would carry out private blockchain-centered projects, combine private and public blockchain networks and finalize push for projects using public blockchain. “Step-by-step approach is important as far as blockchain projects are concerned because systems for blockchain technology have yet to be fixed,” Chung said. /hyun@decenter.kr

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