South Korea to Create Four Mega Special Zones for Tech Sectors

The South Korean government will set up four mega special zones focused on robotics, renewable energy, biotechnology and autonomous driving. Each zone will receive targeted financial support, infrastructure projects, tax incentives and broad regulatory waivers to speed development and commercialization.

The administration plans to pass a “Mega Special Zone Special Act” this year that would allow activities in the zones unless explicitly prohibited by law, applying a negative regulation approach to reduce permission delays. All ministries have been instructed to shorten review and approval timelines for projects in the zones.

Officials discussed appointing a single overseer to coordinate policy across ministries and resolve disputes. President Lee Jae-myung instructed ministries to report resistance to the presidential office for final resolution. He warned that slow, permission-based rules can harm competitiveness, saying, “When public officials set rules saying, ‘just do this,’ the field must change regulations, obtain permits, and in the process, we lose competitiveness.”

The plan follows anti-dumping complaints filed last year by Korean robotics firms about low-priced imports. The Korea Trade Commission imposed anti-dumping duties of about 16%–20% on some Chinese models and about 17%–19% on some Japanese models.

South Korea had about 391,900 operational industrial robots, the fourth-largest national stock after China, Japan and the United States. Officials say the coordinated incentives and eased rules are intended to accelerate research and development, encourage private investment and help firms scale production and commercialization.

Previous administrations proposed similar regulatory experiments but faced inter-ministerial disputes that slowed implementation. The current government plans to centralize decision-making and complete the legal and administrative work on the special act this year.