The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced on June 23 that this year’s K-City Network Global Cooperation Program would be initiated in 11 selected out of 39 applicant countries.

The program based on intergovernmental cooperation is to help cities adopt South Korea’s smart city models and provide relevant support. The program started last year, when 12 cities in the 11 countries, including Indonesia and Peru, were selected.

This year’s program is divided into four subprograms for urban development planning in the Philippines, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Kenya, four for solution-based planning in Vietnam, Bolivia, Azerbaijan and Bulgaria, and three for solution demonstration in the United States, Spain and Turkey.

The urban development planning projects are to find comprehensive solutions to urban problems. This year, the ministry and the four countries will work together on innovative city and free economic zone development.

The solution-based urban planning is to propose more specific solutions. In this category, the ministry will help improve Haiphong’s traffic management systems and set up broadband Internet networks in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The solution demonstration is to help South Korean companies increase their overseas demonstration records and facilitate joint demonstration with developed countries. This year, Ecube Labs will demonstrate its waste management solution in Baltimore and Samsung SDS will demonstrate its smart city platform in Gaziantep, Turkey.

The project budgets will be fixed within this month and the overseas demonstrations will be initiated next month. In the other two, project operators will be selected next month.