[THE INVESTOR] Korea’s government will spearhead its innovative growth by spending big on key sectors in hopes that the private sector will follow suit, the Finance Ministry said on Aug. 13.

A total of 5 trillion won (US$4.40 billion) will be spent to nurture eight critical sectors such as autonomous driving and smart factories, with focus placed on blockchain, big data and artificial intelligence.

The earmarked budget for next year represents a sharp 65 percent increase from this year‘s estimate, according to the ministry.

“The measures will help facilitate the platform economy, which in turn will help speed up innovative growth,” the ministry said.

Earlier, the ministry said state-led companies plan to spend over 30 trillion won in the eight leading sectors such as bio business by 2022, which could draw in private companies to invest and build up those areas going forward.

Separately, the government will spend 60 billion won in nurturing a total of 10,000 specialists for such promising sectors over the next five years, it added.

Innovative growth is one of the key economic goals sought after by the Moon Jae-in government, along with income-led growth.

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)