The Korea Institute of Materials Science(KIMS), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, explored how to build the infrastructure for the integration of the defense industry with the city of Changwon. KIMS and Changwon held a meeting to foster the Changwon cutting-edge defense industry on Tuesday, June 28 in the auditorium of KIMS. The two organizations identified the current state of Changwon's defense industry, and sought countermeasures and policy directions at the meeting.

The meeting was attended by the lawmaker, Young Sun Kim (constituency in Uichang-gu, Changwon-si, Gyeongnam), the Mayor of Changwon Special City, Nam-pyo Hong, the President of KIMS, Jung-hwan Lee, the Chairman of the mayoral transition committee of Changwon Special City, Cho Young-pa, the President of Changwon Industry Promotion Agency, Jeong-han Baek, and the Director of Gyeongnam branch at the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, Park Seong-gil. The meeting was chaired by the former director of the Agency for Defense Development, Hong-yong Jung, and the former Director of Center for Security and Strategy at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, Kyung-wook Shim, the Director of the Materials Digital Platform Division at KIMS, Yong-nam Kwon, and a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, Jong-seo Chae were attended as speakers.

Director Shim (former Director of Center for Security and Strategy at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis) gave a lecture on the topic of challenges of Changwon, the city of innovative defense industry as the first speaker of the day. Dr. Kwon and Prof. Chae presented "Changwon's opportunities and preparations centered on the defense industry” and "building accelerator facilities for civil-military defense industry” respectively. Speakers shared ideas and advised to discover various policies and the next growth engine that could lay the foundation for the development of the defense industry in Changwon.

Jung-Hwan Lee, the President of KIMS, said, “As far back as history recalls, mankind has been using a variety of weapons, and countries with high-tech weapons and high levels of defense industry have won the wars so that they were able to expand their territory and become a powerful nation. With our technology and infrastructure, I am sure that Changwon, the largest defense industry cluster in Korea, can take a quantum jump as a world-class city of defense industry.”