Minister vows to nurture indie music, small agencies for sustainable K-pop growth

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwi-young said Wednesday the government will nurture small and midsize music agencies and indie music to sustain the growth of Korea's popular music industry.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is hosting a policy forum Wednesday afternoon at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul, chaired by Choi, with music agencies and related industry associations in attendance.

Korea's popular music industry has shown strong momentum, driven by the global rise of acts such as BTS — posting the highest year-on-year growth rates across all content sectors last year in both revenue (15.4 percent) and exports (32.4 percent). Concerns have been raised, however, that structural challenges — including rising production costs, genre concentration, a widening gap between large and small companies, a shortage of performance infrastructure and regional imbalances — could slow the industry's growth.

The forum, convened to find solutions for sustainable growth amid those concerns, will bring together music agencies including Mystic Story, CAM WITH US, RBW, FNC Entertainment and EMA, along with the Korea Popular Music Industry Association, the Korea Popular Music Performance Industry Association and the Korea Music Label Industry Association. Discussions are expected to cover the introduction of tax credits for music production, new loan programs for small and midsize companies, and measures to strengthen the indie music ecosystem.

"For the music industry to grow sustainably, small and midsize agencies — the backbone of the industry — must be able to operate actively and build on that foundation," Choi said. "To that end, we will continue to expand the 'Global Leap Support for Small Music Agencies' project, which supported 10 acts this year, and pursue financial support measures including tax credits and loans for music production costs."

Choi also said indie music "is not only the foundation of the music industry, nurturing diverse genres and rookie artists, but also plays a vital role as a pillar of local culture by staging performances rooted in communities across the country." She added that the government would "intensively foster indie music to develop beyond K-pop into 'K-music,'" and pledged to "work to quickly translate the policies the industry actually wants into reality through ongoing dialogue with the sector."

Earlier this year, the ministry selected 10 acts as the first recipients of the newly launched Global Leap Support for Small Music Agencies project: Lisanne, Psykus, Tunex, Kiras, Can't Be Blue, 82Major, Big Ocean, Yousphere, Exin and 8TURN. Each selected agency will receive up to 300 million won ($196,000) per year.