The government has designated five additional regions including Gwangju and Daegu as specialized clusters in the production of materials, parts and equipment.

The finance ministry announced on Thursday that Gwangju is designated as a cluster for auto parts used in future vehicles and autonomous cars while Daegu will specialize in EV motors.

Osong in North Chungcheong Province will produce raw materials for biomedicine, Busan will concentrate on semiconductors and Anseong in Gyeonggi Province will specialize in chips and chip-making equipment.

The latest designations come two and a half years after the first such industrial clusters were named in 2021.

Through the move, the government seeks to raise the self-reliance rate on EV motors from the current 50 to 90 percent and localize the production of key components of future vehicles as well as raw and subsidiary materials essential to producing medicine.

It aims to strengthen the supply chains of power semiconductors and chip-making equipment.

Finance minister Choo Kyung-ho said the clusters manufacturing materials, parts and equipment generated economic effects of five thousand jobs, a 26 percent boost in output and 47 percent rise in exports over the past two years.

Corporate investments worth some six-point-seven trillion won are expected in the newly named projects.