Gyeong-su Kim, Governor of Gyeongnam Province: "Finance, Special Local Administrative Agencies, and Innovation Cities Are Mega City Challenges"

Announced in the Opening Remarks at the 'National Balanced Development and Ultra-Wide Area Cooperation Implementation Strategy Forum'

Kim Kyung-soo, Governor of Gyeongnam Province.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Saeyan] Kim Kyung-soo, Governor of Gyeongnam Province, identified the challenges to be addressed in the process of promoting the megacity as "financial support, establishing the relationship between central government special local administrative agencies and existing innovation cities, and the megacity."

At the 'National Balanced Development and Ultra-wide Area Cooperation Implementation Strategy Forum' held at the Gyeongnam Research Institute on the afternoon of the 3rd, Governor Kim stated, "The ongoing megacity, administrative integration, and ultra-wide area cooperation are not short-lived projects but inevitable choices for coexistence between the metropolitan area and non-metropolitan areas," emphasizing that these three issues must be resolved in the process.

According to the current Local Autonomy Act amendment, there is an issue where each local government must operate the wide-area special union with the finances they share and prepare.

Pointing out this issue, Governor Kim said, "If things continue like this, the wide-area special union will be difficult to succeed," and raised his voice, saying, "It is unfair for the government to invest national funds to create a platform in the metropolitan area while telling non-metropolitan local governments to manage on their own."

Next, Governor Kim mentioned the need to consider how to resolve potential overlaps or conflicts between the projects of the wide-area special union and the duties of the government's special local administrative agencies (local offices).

Lastly, regarding the establishment of the relationship between the existing innovation city development strategy and the megacity, Governor Kim explained the reason why the two strategies must go together by emphasizing, "The second phase of the balanced development strategy announced during the Participatory Government included an ultra-wide area development strategy," and that "the megacity is the result of a gradual evolution process of balanced development."

He also proposed a plan to expand the scope of industry-academia-research clusters to the megacity level while preserving the specialized fields of each innovation city.

Chairman Kim Sa-yeol, who attended the forum that day, said, "An ultra-wide area economic zone that can provide a better quality of life so that regions can compete with the metropolitan area must be formed."

The discussion that followed for about an hour was chaired by Song Won-geun, a member of the Balanced Development Committee and professor at Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology.

Eight experts, including Song Gyo-uk, director of the Busan Research Institute, who participated as discussants, continued a heated atmosphere while discussing concrete implementation strategies for ultra-wide area cooperation, such as establishing a megacity promotion system and financing methods.

A Gyeongnam Province official stated, "Referring to the discussions at the forum, we will accelerate the creation of a Southeast economic community by establishing plans to foster high value-added logistics processing industries in the hinterland cities of Busan and Jinhae New Port."