Gokseong-gun Discovers 167 New Happiness Policies for 2023

Focus on Discovering Policies That Span Generations with the Goal of Realizing Welfare

[Gokseong=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Cha Jong-sun] Jeollanam-do Gokseong-gun (Governor Lee Sang-cheol) announced that from the 23rd to the 26th, it held the ‘2023 Major Policy Report Meeting’ and pledged a successful leap toward ‘a happier Gokseong for its residents.’

At this report meeting, Gokseong-gun discovered 167 new policies across six areas (Attractive Happy City, Educational City for All Growth, Seamless Customized Welfare, Emotional Healing Ecotourism, Income-Generating Future Agriculture, Impressive Innovative Creative Administration).

First, as population policies responding to local extinction, the focus was on policies centered on youth inflow such as ▲Establishment of specialized data for return-to-farming and return-to-village, ▲Construction of Gokseong Youth DB Platform, ▲Operation of Gokseong Youth Center, ▲Establishment of Youth Utopia Youth Pilot Village, ▲Youth startup shared office and startup fund support projects.

In the education sector, innovative policies were discovered to expand the learning ecosystem growing together with the local community and to complete Gokseong-style creative education.

Representative examples include ▲Operation of Gokseong Future Education Forum, ▲Strengthening operation of Gokseong Education Portal connecting schools and villages, ▲Establishment of Gokseong-style On-Village Together Nurturing Education Care, ▲Gokseong E-step for all ages from children to adults, ▲Study methods designed by children.

In the welfare sector, policies such as ▲Prevention of solitary deaths and establishment of emergency safety support system, ▲Support for knee artificial joint surgery costs for low-income elderly, ▲Operation of free sanitary pad vending machines for women and female adolescents in low-income families, ▲Operation of health management centers for the elderly by region, ▲Expansion of child-rearing support funds for rural and fishing village newborns were discovered.

The focus was on discovering policies that encompass generations aiming for meticulous welfare realization.

In the agriculture sector, various policies leading high value-added future agriculture were discovered, including ▲Implementation of autonomous decentralized agricultural policy, ▲New Vitality Plus Project (tentatively named Delivery Farmer Series I), ▲Establishment of Youth Farmer Incubating Hub Center, ▲Increase in support amount for women entrepreneurs’ happiness vouchers, ▲Creation of Gokseong Taro Rural Convergence Industry Zone, ▲Efficiency improvement project for Gokseong Baeksemi production, ▲Support for online sales channels of local agricultural specialties.

In the tourism and culture sector, policies such as ▲Creation of Seomjingang Train Village Railroad Park Project, ▲Establishment of Gokseong Daehwanggang Leisure Sports Base Project, ▲Construction of Gokseong Ecological Library, ▲Creation of National Dongaksan Natural Recreation Forest Project, ▲Creation of Bangujeong Ecological Wetland Theme Park Project, ▲Creation of Gokseong Sports Town were introduced.

Plans are in place to foster stay-type emotional healing ecotourism cultural content where visitors can stay and gather.

Policies to strengthen communication with residents include ▲Promotion of meetings with Gokseong 2023 Innovation Friends, ▲‘A Walk Around the Village’ with residents, ▲Operation of administrative support visiting residents.

In particular, following Governor Lee Sang-cheol’s directive to actively discover policies that impress and bring happiness to residents, small but certain happiness policies have attracted attention.

These include ▲Safe shopping electric cart companion helper service, ▲Local tax refund application using KakaoTalk channel, ▲Laundry support service for lodging businesses, ▲Creation of Ok-gwa District Park Golf Course, ▲Pest control support in preparation for rural aging, ▲Youth culture voucher support, ▲Logistics cost subsidy support project for small and medium enterprises, ▲Gokseong enterprise interview expense support project.

Gokseong-gun plans to verify and supplement the policies discovered through the report meeting and to concretize them into highly feasible policies.

They will also do their best to secure the budget by consulting in advance with related departments of the central government and Jeonnam Province so that the necessary budget for project promotion can be reflected in next year’s main budget.

Gokseong=Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Cha Jong-sun hss79@asiae.co.kr