Geochang County Establishes Detailed Action Plan for Population Policy, Including Response to Ultra-Low Birth Rates

Operation Focused on Three Major Strategies for Three Key Areas

Geochang County in South Gyeongsang Province, after the immediate announcement of its “New Population Policy Plan” following the fall of its 60,000 population mark maintained for 24 years, has now established a “Detailed Action Plan for the New Population Policy.”

Geochang County Office building.

This plan aims to overcome multiple factors hindering regional growth, such as the phenomenon of non-capital regions surpassing the capital area in population, the intensification of low birth rates, the decrease in population size, and the acceleration of local extinction. It is designed to identify the optimal combination of policies and implement them at appropriate times.

The population policy vision for the 8th popularly elected administration has been set as “Nevertheless, Starting Anew: Hopeful Geochang Where People Gather,” with specific goals including the lowest population decline rate, securing a living population of one million, and ranking first in the province for births among county-level jurisdictions.

In addition, the county plans to proactively respond by focusing on three major areas-addressing population decline, local extinction, and ultra-low birth rates-and by implementing a three-stage response strategy and tasks, taking into account the possible timing of these crises becoming reality.

The core initiatives in the three major areas include: securing a resident population through a foreign resident visa program targeting international students at Korea Lift College and plans to attract large educational institutes based on feedback from students and parents in other regions; boosting the living population by introducing the “G Pass,” a Geochang-style tourism innovation voucher (providing weekday living population and accommodation-type vouchers); and strategically expanding the “I Kid Up” system (offering up to 110 million KRW in support after childbirth) to address low birth rates.

The county will also reset the direction and priorities of existing projects to maximize their effectiveness and will meticulously complete a tailored strategy by 2028 that matches the three population categories (resident, living, and births) to the three major areas of response.

County Governor Koo Inmo stated, “As the causes of population decline are increasingly becoming multi-layered and complex, we have established a foundation for expanding positive impacts in the region by proactively responding with this new detailed action plan. We will work to ensure that all projects undertaken by the county are sensitive to population issues, and we will do our utmost to create a vibrant Geochang that anyone would want to visit and live in.”