South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said Friday that it would support start-ups that create services and products based on technologies developed by state-run universities and research institutes to enter the Chinese market.

In a tech event hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing, ICT Minister Choi Yang-hee said the two countries should collaborate in commercializing technologies created during the research and development stages and spur the start-up industry.

As a start, Korea’s state-owned Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute’s ETRI Holdings and Tsinghua Holdings agreed to work together by using each other’s strength in technology and capital, and help boost start-ups.

The two tech investment holdings companies will also set up joint ventures to back start-ups to foray into the Korean and Chinese markets.

“We have established the foundation for start-ups to use public technologies and expand overseas,” ICT Minister Choi said at the event.

“We will continue to make efforts to boost the industry for tech holding companies and research institutes, and further devise policies to support start-ups using technologies developed by state-run agencies.”

The minister also suggested that the two countries’ information and communication technology industries should move to create a business model in which both sides can mutually create value and grow.

“Korea’s ICT (industry) will be able to find and develop a new growth model in China,” said Minister Choi at another tech event in Beijing on Thursday.

“We are currently facing an unavoidable reality in which we can no longer hold off globalizing the (Korean tech) industry through China, and make a paradigm shift.”

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)