– June 6.28. (Wed) Held an on-site meeting on regulatory reform to listen to and improve regulatory difficulties in the robot industry
– Participation of representatives and officials of Seoul robot companies, Korea Robot Industry Association, and regulatory lawyers
– The city will actively propose improvements to the government for regulatory difficulties discovered through the meeting
# ACompanies use collaborative robots to manufacture food and beverages·transferable 24I run a time unmanned cafe., Stores where humans and robots collaborate will also open during peak hours.. The use of robots in these service industries is a promising future industry that increases business efficiency through labor cost reduction, but the current laws and regulations have not yet caught up with the speed of innovation. Basically, robots used in the manufacturing industry and robots in the service industry should have different application of safety standards, but they are all subject to safety regulations only with the same standard, hindering the use of robots in the rapidly developing service industry. Robot companies desperately want safety standards specific to robots in the service industry.
□ The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced that the 'Seoul Partners House' (138 Hannam-daero, Yongsan-gu) held the 'Relay Regulatory Innovation Site Conference' (June 6.28) with robot companies to identify tasks for regulatory improvement in the robot industry and seek improvement measures. The company's suggestions will be forwarded to the government.
○ Major suggestions include preparing customized safety standards for service industry cooperative robots, preparing specific regulations on the use of personal information such as videos taken by robots, and easing regulations on the weight and speed of mobile robots in city parks.
□ The robot industry is an aggregation of future new technologies that is considered one of the means to solve social problems such as increasing demand for care due to population decline and labor shortage, and is a core business that is growing at an annual rate of 6% or more. It is a promising industry that promotes productivity innovation and inter-industry convergence, and is also one of the four innovative industries that Seoul is fostering.
○ It was announced (June 6.21) that Seoul would promote the creation of a 'robot-friendly city, Seoul' where the robot industry enhances the quality of life of citizens, as the service robot industry is developed and various infrastructures are integrated, providing optimal conditions for demonstrating innovative robot technology.
○ The city of Seoul continues to nurture fintech, bio, and artificial intelligence (AI) startups, which are “future industries without chimneys,” and in addition, selects “robots” as the next-generation innovative growth sector, strengthening the startup fostering system for the four major future industries.
□ The city is discovering tasks to improve regulations on Seoul's four major new industries (fintech, robot, bio, artificial intelligence), and this meeting was the second on-site meeting held this year following the on-site meeting on the fintech industry in March.
□ At the on-site meeting, officials from the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Economic Promotion Agency, representatives of robot companies, Korea Robot Industry Association, Korea Robot Industry Promotion Agency, and lawyers specializing in regulations participated to listen to companies' regulatory difficulties and discuss improvement plans from various directions.
○ It is a plan to bring about practical changes by intensively reviewing the regulatory improvement tasks suggested by companies through the meeting, preparing improvement plans, and actively suggesting them to the government.
□ Meanwhile, the city actively supports regulatory consulting that companies need, such as consulting on the application process for the regulatory sandbox in the financial sector. The Regulatory Innovation Support Group, which consists of 40 experts such as lawyers, accountants, and patent attorneys, provides advice, counseling, and consulting free of charge.
○ Regulatory consulting is always available through the Seoul Business Support Center (☎02-2133-3119).
□ Song Ho-jae, Director of Economic Job Planning at Seoul Metropolitan Government, said, "As it is important to preemptively resolve regulations caused by the rapid technological progress and market expansion of the robot industry, I will actively propose to the government for regulatory innovation in the 'robot industry', an innovative growth area that Seoul is focusing on."