The South Korean government will invest 350 billion won ($323.8 million) over the next five years and relax regulations for commercial drone use and business to promote the country’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) industry.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced Thursday that it on Friday will unveil its 10-year plan aimed to promote the country’s drone industry that will include growing the local UAV market to 4.4 trillion won, commercializing 53,000 drones, and enhancing the country’s drone technological prowess to become the world’s top five UAV powerhouse by 2026.

To achieve its goal, it plans to deploy nearly 37,000 drones over the next five years for public use such as infrastructure surveillance and wildfire watch. This is expected to cost the government about 350 billion won.

The government also plans to develop an all-in-one drone management system, dubbed ‘K-Drone System’ that will support drone registration, air traffic management and remote-controlled flights. It plans to develop an automated air traffic controlling system for drones that will be backed by fifth-generation (5G) network-based cloud computing technology, big data and other latest technologies and aims to sell the system to overseas markets.

Along with them, the ministry will revise current UAV regulations in the country to apply separate rules on long-distance flying drones and small toy drones. The government will also build and provide more spaces for testing pilotless planes on top of opening a support center for drone startups.

The world’s UAV market has been on the fast rise in the recent years, but Korea is trailing far behind the global top two countries, the United States and China, in drone development and commercialization due to heavy regulations and a lack of the government’s investment.

By Yeon Gyu-wook and Cho Jeehyun

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