In an effort to become a "globally competitive business HUB" the country will be separated into seven development blocs. Locally
Southwestern Jeolla Province is to be developed as a center for culture as well as renewable energy development and other green growth-based businesses, while Busan and South Gyeongsang Province will become the logistics hub for Northeast Asia.
On the "Green" front, the Expo coming to Yeosu in 2012 has a tagline of "The Living Ocean and Coast: Diversity of Resources and Sustainable Activities." From Korea.net
The main reasons Yeosu's theme and bid appealed to judges is the growing sense that we humans are depleting the ocean's resources and causing rising sea levels and coastal disasters. Yeosu itself embodies harmony between development and conservation -- a beautiful port city surrounded by some 300 beautiful islands and the miles upon miles of picturesque coastline and seas within the vast National Hallyeosudo and National Archipelago marine parks.
Yeosu and the surrounding area is also home to several industrial complexes, including the Yeosu National Industrial Complex, one of the world's largest petrochemical production sites. The Gwangyang Steel Works and Port of Gwangyang, Korea's second-largest container port, lie just across the bay.
This harmony between the Yeosu area's pristine marine parks and vibrant industry make it the ideal place to prove development and conservation are not mutually exclusive.
Whether all the development projects going on in the region are consistent with that "green" theme is another story. The Expo's website could not be reached for comment since, in an unhublike move, all but the Korean-language portion are down.
As I've mentioned before, other development projects in the area include Gwangyang's Free Economic Zone, Haenam county's "Tourism and Leisure City," Muan's "Namak New City" project to build up our provincial capitol, Yeongam's Formula One racing track, and projects in line with Naju's designation as an "Innovative City." Plus all the stuff going on with the Expo, new highways and railways, and so on.
In another ambitious project, or maybe a piece of brainstorming on a napkin that made it to the papers, it was decided back in May that a "mega economic zone" would be built in the south to rival Seoul. From the Chosun Ilbo:
The government will start building a mega economic zone on the south coast later this year by grouping Mokpo in South Jeolla Province, Busan and other southern cities. Tentatively named the Sun Belt economic zone, it will have as big a population and economic power as the Seoul metropolitan area. The government will subdivide the area into three zones: Busan, Mokpo and southern central zone, which clusters together six cities and counties in South Jeolla Province and South Gyeongsang Province. The economic zone will house industrial complexes and research and development parks.
That article links to a January one about the presidential Transition Team's plan to divide the country into seven development zones, among other ambitious ideas. An excerpt:
The plan is to group 16 large cities and provinces into five economic zones -- a central metropolitan zone (Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province), a Chungcheong zone (Daejeon and the Chungcheong provinces), a Jeolla zone (Gwangju and Jeolla provinces), a Daegu-North Gyeongsang zone (Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province) and a southeastern zone (Busan, Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province) -- plus two special zones for Gangwon Province and Jeju Island.
Each zone will be managed by a headquarters with planning, coordination and financial supervisory authority and will get receive subsidies from central government for management of various projects and coordination of policies and programs with cities and provinces under its jurisdiction. This will create separate local economic municipalities.
The committee is thinking of making the central metropolitan zone a hub of international finance and state-of-the-art industries. The Jeolla zone would link the Saemangeum project with tourist, leisure and corporate cities on the southwestern coast, such as Gwangyang and Yeosu. The Chungcheong zone would become a science-technology-education-R&D-bio belt. The Daegu-North Gyeongsang zone would become an energy, electronic and textile industries hub, the southeastern zone a shipbuilding-machinery-maritime-cultural industrial area; the Gangwon zone a tourist and medical hub; and the Jeju zone a tourism hub.
Meanwhile, the committee said construction of the Jeolla regional section of the KTX bullet train line will be completed by 2012, a year earlier than previously scheduled, to galvanize the economy in this part of the country, and to start construction of a new international airport in the southeast, either in Milyang, South Gyeongsang Province or in Busan, as early as 2009. New third-generation ports will be built in Saemangeum, Gwangyang and Busan, together with highways linking the economic zones and highway belts around large cities.
2 comments:
looks like someone in the Korean government has been spending too much time playing Civilization IV. Splitting your 'country' into zones is a common strategy for winning the game.
Looks to me like someone is expecting a sudden and huge influx of people. If you've travelled around north of Seoul you can also find huge new development areas - whole new cities being built - as well as here in Gwangju where new suburbs are still sprouting on the outskirts of town, pushing the countryside further out.
But the idea of a population base suddenly swamping the entire southern section of the peninsular from Mokpo to Busan?! That's definately stepping up the population growth curve a few notches. ... Now, just where could South Korea expect to find so many people possibly and suddenly willing to integrate into the SK lifestyle...?
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