Gwangju City Begins Identifying Tasks for Next Year's Presidential Election Pledges

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Seon-gang] Gwangju Metropolitan City held a briefing session on the planning direction of the 20th presidential election pledges at the city hall's medium conference room on the 9th, one year ahead of the 20th presidential election, officially starting the discovery of election pledges.

At the briefing session chaired by Deputy Mayor Kim Jong-hyo, about 40 participants including heads of Gwangju city departments responsible for discovering pledge tasks and researchers from the Gwangju-Jeonnam Research Institute (hereafter referred to as the Institute) shared the planning direction and implementation methods of the presidential election pledges.

Kim Jae-cheol, the Gwangju General Support Research Officer at the Institute, who explained the planning direction of the election pledges, stated, “Taking this opportunity to discover election pledge tasks, we must prepare mid- to long-term development strategy tasks for Gwangju that respond to future changes and crises,” and viewed paradigm shifts and the demands of the era as key tasks for overcoming the Republic of Korea’s crises, which should be reflected in the next government’s national administration direction.

The city plans to discover pledge tasks by collaborating with experts, related organizations, and civic groups at each department level until early April, and a research planning team consisting of about 10 researchers will prepare a planning report on the pledge tasks.

Additionally, the city and the Institute will compile the pledge tasks they have each discovered into a draft planning report on the presidential election pledge tasks by next month, and thereafter refine and develop them into major tasks suitable for the next national administration direction.

To secure competitiveness in relation to the Seoul metropolitan area and other metropolitan local governments, the city sees the need for joint development strategy tasks for Gwangju and Jeonnam, cooperative projects for mutual growth in the Honam region including Jeonbuk, and mutual growth pledges between Yeongnam and Honam, and plans to propose joint discovery with the relevant cities and provinces.

To this end, the city will operate six task research promotion teams composed of the city, the Institute, experts, related organizations, and civic groups, with the Deputy Mayor as the general director, and finalize the pledge tasks by July through the commercialization stage and the process of gathering citizens’ opinions.

Once the pledge tasks become somewhat visible, the city plans to continuously engage with the political sphere and others to ensure maximum reflection as national tasks through party-government councils and policy forums.

Deputy Mayor Kim Jong-hyo said, “Discovering pledge tasks in preparation for the next government is a crucial task that sets the stage for regional development and prepares for the new normal era triggered by situations such as COVID-19,” and added, “I ask all attendees today to dedicate themselves to discovering presidential election pledges with a historic sense of mission to take responsibility for the future of the Republic of Korea and Gwangju.”

Meanwhile, Gwangju City discovered 24 pledge tasks across seven major fields as presidential election pledges in 2017, and 22 unit projects within 12 pledge tasks, including the creation of an AI-centered startup complex, were reflected as final national tasks.