On August 26, 1975, at the 7th Export Promotion Expansion Meeting chaired by President Park Chung-hee, Iksan was designated Korea's only official gem-processing industrial zone. At that meeting, an order went out to develop Korea's precious-metal and gemstone industry as a strategic export sector — and from that point on, Iksan became the city where the national government concentrated its investment in gem-cutting and jewelry manufacturing.
What's interesting is that this wasn't an industry conjured out of nothing. The region is said to have had a tradition of jewelry and ornament craftsmanship dating back to the Baekje era, and the 1970s state-led industrial push looks less like the invention of something new and more like the rediscovery of an old technical tradition, repackaged as a modern export industry. Today, Iksan is home to Korea's only dedicated gem museum, which displays both the industry's modern history and its claimed connection back to Baekje-era ornament-making techniques. The city has continued building on this specialization since, developing a precious-metal and gemstone industry cluster and an R&D center. A single directive issued at a presidential meeting ended up defining a city's industrial identity for nearly half a century.