Lee Yong-seop: "We Will Open the Era of 50 Trillion KRW Cultural GRDP by 2030"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Jin-hyung] Lee Yong-seop, a preliminary candidate for mayor of Gwangju Metropolitan City, announced five strategies to strengthen cultural competitiveness as the fourth pledge to complete a "bigger and stronger Gwangju" on the 14th.

At a press conference held at the Gwangju City Council's Citizen Communication Office, candidate Lee promised, "We will provide citizens with diverse cultural consumption and offer abundant creative opportunities to cultural artists to further enhance cultural competitiveness and open the era of a 5 trillion won cultural GRDP by 2030."

Among the five strategies, Lee announced plans to develop the May 18 Memorial events into a world-class festival of democracy, human rights, and peace, creating a festival ground where the older and future generations, as well as Gwangju citizens and people worldwide, share and unite in the spirit of May through events such as the May 18 Youth Pilgrimage and the May 18 International Marathon.

He also plans to concentrate various festivals and events such as the Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju Design Biennale, Gwangju ACE Fair, Chungjang Festival Fringe Festival, and the opening of the Mudeungsan summit around October, and to plan and promote representative brand festivals of Gwangju such as the Festival of Light and the World Food Festival.

Next, he intends to attract the Korea Culture Technology Institute (CT Institute) to Gwangju to lead the development of advanced cultural content technologies and to revitalize the cultural industry centered on the Gwangju Realistic Content Cube.

He also presented plans to commercialize world-class media fa?ades as tourism products and to establish systems for attracting companies and nurturing talent related to esports, games, and animation. Through this, he aims to open the era of a 5 trillion won cultural industry GRDP by 2030.

Candidate Lee plans to support cultural artists with an annual art creation allowance of 1 million won and to enhance the effectiveness of the specialized safety insurance for cultural artists, which was introduced nationwide for the first time. The Gwangju campus of the Korea National University of Arts Gifted Education Center is targeted to open in March 2023.

Infrastructure will also be built so that citizens can enjoy world-class performances in Gwangju. By 2025, candidate Lee plans to complete the construction of a regionally specialized "Traditional Living Music Hall" and establish small theaters throughout the city where anyone who loves culture and arts can exhibit and perform.

He will make every effort to secure a budget of 3.3 trillion won to ensure the smooth progress of the Asia Culture Center City Development Project (3rd revised plan) as scheduled. Cultural urban environment projects, including the creation of five cultural zones, will also be promoted by 2028.

To make the National Asia Culture Center a beloved landmark for citizens and a popular destination for outsiders, he plans to coordinate functions and roles in consultation with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and significantly expand the participation of local artists.

Candidate Lee stated, "The true competitiveness of a city comes not from population, area, or income level, but from culture and arts rooted in history and tradition," and added, "We will realize a high-quality cultural first-class city where not only Gwangju citizens but also 18 million Yeong and Honam residents can enjoy cultural life in Gwangju using the Moonlight High-Speed Rail."