South Korea designates first metropolitan-linked regulatory-free zones

The South Korean government has designated the nation’s first ‘metropolitan-linked regulatory-free zones’ to facilitate the testing of new technologies across multiple regions. The initiative focuses on two primary sectors: smart agriculture and new marine leisure.

In the smart agriculture zone, regions including Jeonnam, Gwangju, Jeonbuk, and Chungnam will collaborate to develop an integrated ecosystem. This includes using direct current (DC) produced from agrivoltaics to charge electric farm machinery and testing autonomous, unmanned farming operations. The project aims to improve energy efficiency by reducing the conversion steps between DC and AC power and will establish safety standards for DC distribution networks and autonomous equipment.

The marine leisure zone involves cooperation between Gyeongbuk and Busan to test autonomous navigation for leisure vessels and unmanned rescue technologies across different marine environments.

These metropolitan-linked zones represent a shift from single-region testing to a model that considers entire industrial supply chains and value chains. The government intends to use the results to establish national standards and facilitate the commercialization of these emerging technologies.