Park Gyuntaek's Sixth Policy Pledge: Designation and Operation of Gwangju Myeonghwa Kimchichon

Year-round Kimchi Experience and Sales... Utilization of Venue for Gwangju Kimchi Festival

Specialized by Vegetable Production Seasons... Expected to Attract Tourists and Generate Local Income

Park Gyuntaek, a preliminary candidate for the National Assembly representing Gwangsan-gu (Gap), Gwangju Metropolitan City, announced on the 25th his sixth policy pledge: the designation and operation of the Gwangju Myeonghwa Kimchi Village to promote kimchi as a tourism resource.

On the morning of the same day, Candidate Park announced a pledge to designate the natural villages in Gwangsan-gu, where kimchi ingredients such as radish and napa cabbage are produced, as kimchi villages, and to hold specialized kimchi festivals aligned with the seasonal vegetable production periods throughout the year, linked with the Gwangju Kimchi Festival. Han Gurye, former Special Policy Chairman of the Traditional Folk Kimchi Village, attended the event.

The plan is to designate a kimchi village in Myeonghwa natural village, Pyeong-dong, Gwangsan-gu, a collective production area for kimchi ingredients, equipped with a kimchi exhibition hall, experience center, sales booths, and a public parking lot, and to establish a kimchi village agricultural corporation involving local residents and kimchi experts to operate it independently.

Currently, Gwangju City spends about 1 to 2 billion KRW annually on temporary facilities such as Mongolian tents during the kimchi festival. Candidate Park explained that this one-time consumable budget could be replaced with festival ancillary facility costs such as exhibition halls and public parking lots in the kimchi village, and that experience and sales facilities could be funded by utilizing existing houses within the village.

Candidate Park Gyuntaek said, “Although the Gwangju Kimchi Festival has been held once a year for 30 times, it was held by setting up Mongolian tents on paved blocks without a single patch of field at places like Yeomju Gymnasium and Sangmu Citizen Park, failing to create a festive atmosphere. Since there is no kimchi attraction where kimchi experiences and sales can be conducted outside the festival period, the year-round operation of a kimchi village is urgent.”