The government has approved that ACCIÓ —the Agency for Enterprise Competitiveness of the Ministry of Business and Knowledge— signs a memorandum with the Gyeonggi Center for Creative Economy & Innovation, South Korea's leading public start-up accelerator, to boost the entrepreneurial ecosystems of both territories.  

The aim of the agreement, which will last two years, is to share knowledge, good practices, resources and infrastructures to promote collaborations between Catalonia and South Korea in the field of start-ups and entrepreneurship. Therefore, ACCIÓ intends to position Catalonia as an entry hub to the European market for South Korean start-ups and, at the same time, to support emerging Catalan companies in their starting process or expansion to this Asian market through the Foreign Trade and Investment Office of ACCIÓ in Seoul.

In particular, the memorandum expects an exchange of knowledge and information in areas such as policies to support the start-up of entrepreneurial projects, academic initiatives or good practices. In addition, a platform will be established to connect the two territories and share this knowledge, in addition to developing emerging business ideas from start-ups through incubation and acceleration programs. Within the framework of the agreement, collaboration is contemplated regarding organization of events, such as seminars or business conferences.

The main function of the Gyeonggi Center is to incubate and accelerate start-ups to boost market access, mainly from ICT-related sectors such as those working on IoT, 5G or artificial intelligence solutions. The centre has more than 217 Korean start-ups and supports 162 international start-ups. The entity has a global network of alliances with 36 entities around the world, such as the United States, the United Kingdom and France.