By the middle of next month, the committee in charge of the nation's project of establishing a science belt plans to narrow the number of candidate locations down to five venues.

The committee's vice chairman Kim Sang-joo told reporters during a briefing Wednesday that the team plans to inspect and survey land lots in about 80 cities and districts in non-metropolitan areas. One of the criteria for the science belt location survey is that the space measures more than one-point-six million square meters.

The committee on building an international science-business belt has decided to build a research center for basic sciences together with the 460 billion won heavy ion accelerator complex, known as Korea Rare Isotope Accelerator (KORIA), at one location in the science belt.

Kim added that the National Basic Science Institute will house around 50 research teams in the form of a network.