S. Korea To Create 100,000 Jobs In Health Sector By 2022

S. Korea to create 100,000 jobs in health sector by 2022

South Korea aims to create 100,000 new jobs in the bio-health sector by 2022 through robust R&D support that will improve quality of life for many people in the country, the government said on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Apr, 2018 ) :South Korea aims to create 100,000 new jobs in the bio-health sector by 2022 through robust R&D support that will improve quality of life for many people in the country, the government said on Wednesday.

Under the plan finalized by a presidential committee, the Moon Jae-in administration is striving to increase the country's "healthy life" expectancy from 73 in 2015 to 76 in 2022, officials said.

"In the past, R&D policy had been mainly crafted by experts in the sector. However, we have taken into consideration how science technology would directly affect the lives of the people," Mun Mi-ock, the chief science adviser to President Moon, said during the committee's meeting.

The government will also expand the R&D budget for the development of various medical devices and put more effort into improving distribution channels to further foster exports. To enhance competitiveness, the government plans to compile big bio data by working with major general hospitals to collect patient records, officials said.

The big data will be used to develop new drugs and to create services that can predict the future course of diseases. The government will also operate a center that will help aspiring entrepreneurs in the bio sector to start their own businesses.

The ministry is mulling an R&D project worth Rs 1 trillion won for treatment of dementia patients, which is scheduled to be carried out between 2020 and 2029. During the presidential campaign, Moon stressed that the government should take more responsibility for the treatment of dementia and proposed launching a state program to address the issue.

Among South Koreans aged 65 or older, 725,000 are estimated to be suffering from dementia, data showed. Experts say the number of people with the disease will reach the 1 million mark in 2024, and surge to 2 million in 2041 and 2.7 million in 2050.