The government plans to develop the Korean software industry by shifting the focus of the domestic IT industry from hardware to software.

To that end, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy plans to invest an additional one trillion won before 2012 to generate a new market for software convergence.

The ministry plans to increase small and mid-sized enterprises’ participation in public sector software projects and will develop new talents in the area and increase investment in software R&D.

The ministry reported the strategy to become a software powerhouse to an emergency economic response meeting chaired by President Lee Myung-bak on Thursday.

The government has decided to launch its first project for the software industry in order to respond quickly to the shift in the global IT industry to software.