Lee Jong-ho, center, minister of Science and ICT poses with CEOs of the country's leading digital platform companies at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) building in Seoul, Wednesday. From left are Danggeun Market CEO Kim Jae-hyun, Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun, Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, Konkuk University professor Kwon Nam-hoon, Seoul National University professor Lee Won-woo, Korea Internet Corporations Association President Park Seong-ho, Kakao CEO Namkoong Whon, and Woowa Brothers CEO Kim Bom-jun. Courtesy of Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning

By Baek Byung-yeul

The government will establish a task force comprised of government officials and private companies to draw up strategies to beef up the digital platform industry and create self-regulation guidelines related to emerging technologies such as data management and artificial intelligence (AI), the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (ICT) minister said Wednesday.

"For the country's platform industry, we will form a pan-government policy consultative body, implement a self-regulation policy and help companies improve their innovation capabilities," Lee Jong-ho, minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning, said during a meeting with CEOs of the nation's top digital platform companies at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) building in Seoul.

"The Ministry of Science and ICT will play an active role in harmonizing innovation and fairness in the digital platform ecosystem. We will provide all-round support so that innovation capabilities can be fully demonstrated in a free market that is led by private companies," the minister added.

This was the ICT minister's first meeting with leaders of digital platform operators. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, Kakao CEO Namkoong Whon, Coupang CEO Park Dae-jun, Woowa Brothers CEO Kim Bom-jun, and Danggeun Market CEO Kim Jae-hyun all participated in the meeting.

During the meeting, the minister listened to industry issues from the leaders and talked about things that need to be considered when setting up a self-regulation policy in the future.

Regarding the reason why the government wants to set rules for the industry, thereby allowing companies to check and monitor themselves autonomously, the minister said "It is true that some side effects occur due to the growing social influence of the platform operators, so it is necessary to establish a regulatory system. However, considering the increasingly fierce global platform operators market, the digital platform policy should emphasize the value of innovation and fairness, and the method of regulation should also be innovatively changed."

The participating CEOs expressed their opinions on the fact that the county needs to come up with a development plan for the digital platform industry.

"We welcome the government's move to discuss self-regulation measures with platform operators," the Naver CEO said. "We will gather wisdom together to make a healthy digital ecosystem."

Kakao's CEO said, "We will actively participate in related discussions in the future while we also calling for the government's interest and support for the industry's ongoing effort to advance the self-regulation system."

Coupang's CEO said, "We fully agree with the government's direction of establishing a self-regulation policy and will actively take part in the establishment of the system in the future."