On 16 June 2026, the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA) announced a joint initiative – named ‘Support for Global Leap’ – which will provide financial support to select small and mid-sized K-pop agencies.

The initiative, launching this year, will see 10 agencies per year receiving up to 300 million won ($198,000), with the possibility of an extension for a further two years if success has been demonstrated. The ten K-pop groups selected as the inaugural beneficiaries from this year’s funding are: RESCENE, xikers, TUNEXX, KIIRAS, can’t be blue, 82MAJOR, Big Ocean, USPEER, X:IN and 8TURN.

The money is to be spent solely on international activities, such as export-oriented album and music video production, overseas marketing and promotion, and international events including concerts. This list makes the program unique; previous programs typically focus on specific areas such as album production and limit an agency’s flexibility in determining how the money is spent. It will allow agencies to expand on existing strategies, rather than reshaping previously established plans for overseas expansion.

Fundamentally, this announcement highlights the Korean Ministry’s intention to see K-pop expanding further on a global basis across the board – beyond the current success of groups managed by the largest K-pop agencies. K-pop groups like Big Hit Music’s BTS, JYP Entertainment’s Stray Kids, HYBE’s LE SSERAFIM and SM ENTERTAINMENT’s aespa, are all achieving significant success abroad across sales, music charts, and with live events. However, each of these are run by companies either part of the K-pop industry’s ‘Big Four’ or disrupting the categorisation’s accuracy, and thus flourishing domestically and internationally with pre-established funding and resources. Smaller agencies do not have the same financial capacities. Therefore, by targeting small to mid-sized agencies with additional funding, this initiative may narrow the gap and help emerging groups have a stronger chance of successfully entering the international market.

It is key that these groups are largely within K-pop’s fifth generation. This initiative aims at not only promoting K-pop widely, but promoting younger artists for a more sustained global interest in the industry over time. While the permanence of the program is unclear at this stage, it is likely to serve as a long term investment.

The initiative can only provide support for one to three years, and relies on solid plans for overseas expansion being established by the companies themselves. While progression will still be a challenge during this limited period, we can expect to see a broader range of groups being advertised and running events overseas.