Breaking the Secret Practice... Seoul City Opens New Year's Work Report to Citizens for the First Time

Park Won-soon Announces Goal to Realize a 'Fair Starting Line'
Reports on Plans to Promote Four Key Priority Projects

Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon is speaking at the launch event of the Multi-Sectoral Dialogue Organization to Alleviate Youth Inequality held at the Seoul City Hall Multipurpose Hall on the 19th. / Photo by Moon Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunju Lee] Seoul City is breaking the convention of holding closed-door meetings by publicly sharing its New Year work report with citizens for the first time.

On the 22nd, Seoul City announced that it will hold the "2020 New Year Work Report to Citizens" at the new city hall's main conference room.

Mayor Park will announce the administrative direction and goals to realize the core agenda of Seoul city administration this year, "Fair Starting Line." Following this, heads of departments and bureaus will present four key projects to citizens and report on their implementation plans.

This is the first time Seoul City has made the New Year work report public and shared its priority projects with citizens. After Mayor Park toured all 25 autonomous districts to directly explain the New Year budget to citizens, this time the plan is to actively incorporate voices from the field into policies and projects through the public disclosure of the New Year work report. About 80 citizens selected through public recruitment and invitation, along with external experts, will participate in the event.

The four key projects of Seoul City are ▲support for innovative startups ▲support for youth starting out ▲housing support for newlyweds ▲establishment of elementary care centers. The city explained, "In the context of prolonged low growth, low birthrate, and aging population trends, a major transformation to revive the economy and people's livelihoods must start from a fair starting line, which is why these four key projects were selected."

Support for innovative startups is the starting point for future growth. This year, Seoul will expand 300 technology startup spaces within the city and create an innovation fund of 480 billion KRW, twice the original target, to invest in 500 startups. The plan is also to focus on scaling up innovative startups and creating Seoul startups.

The second is the youth starting support policy, which guarantees a fair starting line for young people. This year, the youth allowance will be expanded to 30,000 people, and about 500 billion KRW will be invested in 60 projects including youth mental health support and the establishment of Seoul Youth Centers.

The third is housing support for newlyweds as a starting line. Through expanding housing supply and financial support, the plan is to supply 25,000 homes, adding 8,000 homes to the current 17,000.

Finally, there is the "Our Neighborhood Care Center Establishment" project for complete care. By 2021, the city will significantly expand 25 municipal base-type care centers and accelerate the expansion of general and integrated Our Neighborhood Care Centers that can be accessed within 10 minutes from home and school.

Mayor Park Won-soon said, "2020 is the year to concentrate all administrative capabilities on creating a 'fair starting line' for citizens," adding, "We will transparently disclose this to citizens, broadly gather diverse voices from citizens and experts who are policy beneficiaries, and do our best to create a fair starting line."