South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism is planning to invest $271m (KW410bn) in the manga, animation and character-merchandisingindustries to develop 'one-source, multi-use (OSMU)killer content' by 2013.

Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Yu In-chon today announced a plan to invest $33m in manga, $66m in animation, $39.6m in character-merchandising and $132m in human resources development -looking to createOSMUcontent that can be lucrative in several different media.

The five-year planalso involves finding three to five projects each year through contests, and providing up to $661,000 in funding for each project.

Out of these projects, four to five are to be developed into 'global strategy products' by 2013.

The ministry forecasts thatif it succeeds with the four to five projects, the local gross profits will equal $4.6bn, with $2bn in exports and 10,000 new jobs.

'The Korean Wave TV drama Winter Sonata only made about $19.8m for [local broadcaster] KBS, but we've seen Japan reap the economic effects of $794m,' said Yu, explaining it was the lack of Korean business' expertise in creating and managing OSMU content. (The dramaseriesstarringBae Yong-joon spawned locationtour packages as well as a slew of merchadise.)

Yuwent on to pledge continuing support for OSMU content based on manga, animation and character-merchandising - to bring in foreign investment and international co-productions; to provide support for local and international marketing; and to work towards creating completion bond and 'content value evaluation' systems.

The ministry is alsoplanning to work with other governmental bodies to expand the local animation quota for terrestrial broadcasters tolikewise cover animation-specialty cable channels, satellite channels, and new media such as IPTV.

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