The Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province has headed to the Netherlands to find sustainable ways to foster the agricultural and bio-industry, which the Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province is promoting as a key provincial government project. The province has begun to pursue cooperation with the Netherlands to find sustainable ways to foster the agricultural and bio-industry, which the province is promoting as a key provincial government project.
The Jeonbuk Autonomous Province announced on the 3rd (local time) that the Jeonbuk Autonomous Province delegation, including Governor Kim Kwan-young, made an official visit to the Netherlands to look into the development of the agricultural and biotechnology industry and seek cooperation measures in order to foster new industries and engage in public diplomacy activities.
On this day, Governor Kim and the delegation visited the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition (DSGC) chaired by former Dutch Prime Minister Jan P. Balkenende, smart agriculture and livestock company Lely, and the Leiden Life Science Cluster (LBSP), inspecting advanced technology facilities and discussing cooperation measures.
During a visit to former Dutch Prime Minister Balkenende in The Hague, the roles of Korean and Dutch local governments and companies in sustainable growth were discussed, as well as ways to cooperate with Dutch agro-biotechnology giants such as Unilever, which are part of the alliance.
During his tenure as the 49th Prime Minister of the Netherlands (2002-2010), Chairman Balkenende established several policies to strengthen the authority of local governments, and after leaving office, he continued to engage in sustainable growth social contribution activities in cooperation with businesses.
At this meeting, former Prime Minister Balkenende showed great interest in the vision of Jeollabuk-do as a global bio-economy city and the special provision for developing an agricultural bio-industry capital proposed by Governor Kim, and expressed agreement with the need to strengthen the role of local governments for sustainable growth.
Earlier in the morning, the Jeonbuk Autonomous Province delegation visited Lely, a leading Dutch smart livestock company, and Leiden Bioscience Park (LBSP), the largest life science cluster in the Netherlands, to discuss cooperation for expanding sustainable agricultural life science new industries.
The delegation received a briefing on the industry outlook and global collaboration network from Lely’s Chief Commercial Officer, Heiss Scholmann, and toured the R&D center and exhibition hall, including automatic milking robots and automatic feeders.
Governor Kim shared the idea of Jeollabuk-do taking the lead in sustainable agricultural and livestock industry innovation in South Korea, citing Imsil in Jeollabuk-do as an example, which was the first in Korea to produce its own cheese in 1969.
On August 27, Do signed a business agreement with Pulmuone, Seoul National University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation, etc. for the establishment of the first ‘Animal Welfare Future Ranch’ in Korea. Through this visit, Do plans to work to discover joint research and development cooperation projects in the dairy industry that incorporate information and communication technology (ICT).
The Leiden Bio Science Park, established in 1984 as the first of its kind in Europe, is the largest life science cluster in the Netherlands with over 200 bio companies and research institutes. It has recently been activating the analysis infrastructure and startup network related to the microbiome.
The delegation heard from LBSP Director Esther Peters about the cluster’s establishment and operation know-how and toured the Center for Microbiome Analysis (CMAT) and the National Disposal Fibroaden Bank (NDFB) facilities.
During this visit, Governor Kim introduced the microbiome industry-academia-research ecosystem in Jeonbuk, including the Jeonbuk National University Hospital Microbiome Clinical Support Center, Sunchang Useful Microorganism Bank (scheduled for 2024), and Microbiome Knowledge Industry Center (scheduled for 2026), and discussed sharing LBSP analysis and K-food clinical research, as well as cooperation in the startup ecosystem.
Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province Governor Kim Kwan-young said, “Through my visit to the Netherlands, I hope to seek new areas of agricultural and biotechnology cooperation beyond the existing framework of cooperation between Korea and the Netherlands,” adding, “I expect that we will be able to promote global cooperation based on Jeonbuk’s leading infrastructure as the capital of the agricultural and biotechnology industry in Korea and the unique strengths of the mainstream K-food.”
Queen Choi Ha Na Reporter
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2024-09-03 12:36:26