Chungnam Province plans to invest 1.2 trillion won over the next five years in projects aimed at balanced regional development.
On the 16th, Chungnam Province announced that it has recently completed the selection of the second phase of cities and counties for the balanced regional development project and will begin actively discovering new projects.
The second phase includes a total of 10 cities and counties, adding Hongseong-gun to the first phase targets (Gongju, Boryeong, Nonsan, Geumsan, Buyeo, Seocheon, Cheongyang, Yesan, Taean).
The projects are scheduled to run from 2026 to 2030, with a total budget of 1.241 trillion won during this period. Each target city and county is expected to receive 24.8 billion won annually.
Chungnam Province aims to enhance the growth potential of these 10 cities and counties, which are relatively less developed compared to the northern region, to fundamentally resolve the imbalance issues among cities and counties.
Analysis of key indicator changes across all cities and counties in Chungnam shows that the population gap between the northern and southern regions has recently widened, and aging progresses faster in less developed areas compared to developed ones.
Accordingly, Chungnam Province plans to focus on creating synergy effects in youth population inflow and settlement, as well as housing and job support projects, by linking balanced regional development projects centered on the southern region with the Local Extinction Fund and Chungnam Province’s key projects.
Additionally, the province plans to discover strategic projects by region that leverage local characteristics and features, such as establishing new business cooperation zones (clusters) for each city and county, to help low-growth cities and counties secure sustainable growth engines.
To secure time for project discovery and preparation and ensure solid project implementation, Chungnam Province will advance the project schedule by two years, finalizing the second phase balanced regional development project plan by the end of next year. From 2025, it will precede administrative procedures such as financial investment reviews by one year, enabling full-scale financial input starting in 2026.
Ko Hyo-yeol, Director of the Balanced Development Bureau of Chungnam Province, said, “Chungnam Province will promote research to discover second phase city and county balanced regional development projects, focusing on identifying and implementing projects that enable balanced growth and development across the entire province.” He added, “In the long term, we will pursue a dual strategy to respond to local extinction by addressing future industry challenges and structural problems in sustaining industries.”
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