Im takes office for third term, following his 7th and 8th elected terms
Im Byeong-taek was inaugurated Wednesday as the 15th mayor of Siheung, beginning his third consecutive term in office.
In his inaugural address, titled "Uninterrupted Progress for Siheung — I Will See It Through," Im said that during his previous two terms he had "planted seeds and built momentum for Siheung's great transformation." He added that "the time has now come to bring those fruits into the lives of our citizens," and said he would "use the past eight years as a foundation to build the sturdy pillars that will sustain Siheung for the next 100 years."
The following is the full text of his inaugural address.
Respected citizens of Siheung — all 600,000 of you,
Distinguished guests who have joined us for this meaningful occasion,
I stand before you today, entrusted with the mandate of Siheung's mayor under the ninth round of local elections. I am sincerely grateful to the 600,000 citizens of Siheung for giving me the opportunity to serve again.
Although this is my third term as mayor of Siheung, it is the first time I have held a formal inauguration ceremony. Previous ceremonies were canceled due to unexpected disasters and crises. Today, Wednesday, I am holding this ceremony with you, our citizens, for the first time.
That is why I want today — all the more meaningful for that reason — to be not a moment of new beginnings, but a moment of promises and resolve. I reaffirm before you the commitment I made from the very start: to protect the ordinary happiness of ordinary citizens. And I remind myself once again of the weighty mission and responsibility that comes with being mayor of Siheung.
All of this is your doing. The title of three-term mayor of Siheung, and the historic distinction of being the first uncontested winner in the Greater Seoul area — you, the citizens, made these possible. I feel both deep gratitude and a profound sense of responsibility.
Your message is clear: finish what you started. It is a firm directive to carry Siheung's development forward without wavering. I will never forget the hopes, encouragement, cherished wishes, and heartfelt expectations you sent my way during the campaign. I will honor your will and see it through without fail.
Building on the achievements quietly accumulated over the past eight years, I will see through to the end the creation of "K-Siheung — a city that represents the Republic of Korea" and a source of pride for its citizens.
Respected citizens of Siheung,
Together, we have accomplished a great deal.
We endured the harsh years of the COVID-19 pandemic side by side, and we never gave up on Siheung's tomorrow even in the midst of crisis. Through the strength of our great citizens and the resilience of a Siheung that never stops striving, we have achieved countless results.
Designated as a national strategic biotech specialized cluster, Siheung is building a world-leading bio mega-cluster together with Incheon's Songdo district. Siheung Baegot Seoul National University Hospital has finally broken ground, and the Korea Testing & Research Institute's Siheung Biomedical Research Institute has begun taking shape. Pharmaceutical company Chong Kun Dang has committed 2.2 trillion won ($1.42 billion) in investment to Siheung.
Siheung has secured the Gyeonggi Province AI Innovation Cluster and the province's flagship physical AI diffusion center, laying a solid foundation for an integrated AI innovation model. The city also won the bid to host the WHO Global Bio Campus, which will serve as a hub for training biotech professionals worldwide, and the Gyeonggi-type Bio Science High School is on track to open in 2029.
On Geobukseon Island in Lake Sihwa, the city has built a hub for marine leisure and tourism along the West Sea coast through the development of diverse marine leisure infrastructure, and has raised Siheung's profile as a city that embraces the sea by hosting large-scale international events.
These achievements have been validated by external assessments. Siheung has earned the top rating in the Manifesto campaign pledge implementation evaluation for seven consecutive years, an excellence designation in the local government innovation assessment for seven consecutive years, and selection as an outstanding city in Gyeonggi Province's comprehensive municipal evaluation for six consecutive years.
This is entirely the achievement of all of us, built together with you, our citizens — a testament to Siheung's power to turn the impossible into the possible.
We will not stop. We will move forward.
What we have started, we will finish.
If the past two terms were about planting seeds and building momentum for Siheung's great transformation, the time has now come to bring those fruits into the lives of our citizens.
We will complete ongoing projects without disruption and fulfill our promises to citizens through tangible change.
We will realize "Siheung — the world's No. 1 bio mega-cluster."
When people think of Siheung now, they think of AI and biotech. Anchored by Siheung Baegot Seoul National University Hospital, Siheung Seoul National University Dental Hospital, Chong Kun Dang, and the Korea Testing & Research Institute, we will attract leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies to build a national bio-clinical hub that leads AI-driven clinical innovation. Adding biotech materials, components, and equipment industries to the mix, we will complete a global medical and biotech innovation ecosystem where the lights in the research labs never go out.
In the Jeongwang district, rich with growth potential, we will lift greenbelt restrictions to realize the designation of a national industrial complex, creating an AI- and biotech-specialized, advanced self-sufficient new town unlike anything else in the country.
We will build an ultra-wide hub belt where the AI and biotech spark ignited in Baegot passes through Jeongwang's advanced self-sufficient new town and reaches completion in Wolgot. By pushing ahead with the Wolgot transit-oriented urban development project and the Marine World site development at pace, we will complete Baegot, Jeongwang, and Wolgot as the country's premier ultra-wide biotech hub complex.
The warmth of growth must reach every corner of Siheung.
Above all, the fruits of AI and biotech innovation will be returned to the city as a whole and will change the lives of each and every citizen.
That begins with Siheung Baegot Seoul National University Hospital. Once the hospital is built, it is expected to create approximately 142,000 new jobs, generate 20.8 billion won in additional tax revenue over the five years following its opening, and add more than 2 billion won per year thereafter.
The benefits will spread evenly across all 20 neighborhoods in the city through people-first policies that protect citizens' daily lives, bringing real change to residents. One hospital will transform all of Siheung.
The winds of change will also reach the original city center. The Daeya-Sincheon administrative welfare center will relocate to the North Siheung Nonghyup site, bringing public services closer to residents. We will push ahead with redevelopment projects in the original city center at pace to deliver change that residents can feel. We will expand tailored budget support for traditional markets and neighborhood commercial districts that reflects each area's distinct character, doing our utmost to ensure that all 20 neighborhoods of Siheung shine with their own light.
Safety will be the top priority in running city government.
The faster the city develops and the more brilliantly it grows, the more we must return to the fundamental principle of protecting the safety and lives of our citizens. Siheung will steadfastly uphold the principle of proactively responding to every threat to citizens' lives — from small everyday hazards to unexpected disasters.
First, we will pursue re-accreditation as an International Safe City to objectively assess Siheung's safety standards and further strengthen our safety systems. This year, Siheung independently built an integrated disaster and safety map, establishing a systematic disaster management framework covering prevention, response, recovery, and post-incident management. By integrating 20 categories of disaster and safety information — including chronically flood-prone zones and areas at risk of casualties — we will proactively manage disaster-vulnerable areas, prepare thoroughly even for what cannot be seen, and be the first to stand by our citizens in moments of crisis.
We will build a city where learning and care are the foundations of life.
Education is the most reliable investment in a city's future. In this third term, we will focus our efforts on nurturing the talent that will lead the era of advanced industries such as AI and biotech.
We will upgrade the pharmaceutical and biotech workforce development system linked to Seoul National University's Siheung campus, and build an AI-based career guidance, university admissions, and education consulting platform to support individuals in designing their futures in line with their aptitudes and potential. We will also develop Siheung Bio Science High School into the country's first Seoul National University-affiliated institution for nurturing foundational convergence talent, making it the cornerstone of Siheung as an AI and biotech education city. We will do our utmost to ensure that the city's growth engine connects with children's dreams by completing a virtuous cycle in which industry and education reinforce each other.
Siheung is already a cradle of grassroots education governance — the first city in the country to establish neighborhood-level community education councils, where education stakeholders from both communities and schools discuss and act on a wide range of education issues together. As chair of the "Breaking Down Walls" subcommittee of the Gyeonggi Province superintendent of education's transition committee, I will do everything in my power to tear down the walls between schools and communities, and to ensure that an education environment in which the whole community raises children together takes firm root not only in Siheung but across all of Gyeonggi Province.
Above all, education and care are only truly complete when citizens' basic livelihoods are securely guaranteed. In May, Siheung enacted the Siheung Basic Society Realization Ordinance, laying the institutional groundwork to ensure that citizens' basic lives are fulfilled across a range of areas including care, education, housing, and income.
This is a commitment to our citizens to build a city where tomorrow holds no anxiety — a warm and inclusive city. We will pursue Siheung-style basic society policies that encompass all aspects of citizens' daily lives and realize a leading model for a basic society.
In Siheung, nature becomes rest, and culture becomes everyday life.
We will cultivate Siheung's beautiful ecological assets — Soraesan, Gaetgol Ecological Park, Eungye Lake Park, the Lotus Theme Park, Mulwang Lake, and Lake Sihwa — into representative natural destinations for the Greater Seoul area. We will also develop a neighborhood park with seasonal themes to ensure that all citizens can enjoy rest and leisure in nature.
Culture and the arts should not be something enjoyed only in specific venues, but a natural part of everyday life. We will offer a diverse range of performance and experience programs — including busking events and film festivals — throughout the city, creating a cultural city where everyone can enjoy high-quality culture and the arts right outside their front door.
Furthermore, through the Siheung Arts Center, set to open in the second half of this year, we will bring high-quality culture and the arts closer to citizens' lives. By building a second cultural arts center in the northern part of the city in connection with the ABC Happy Learning Town, we will develop balanced cultural infrastructure and position Siheung as a leading cultural and arts hub for the southwestern Greater Seoul area.
Respected citizens of Siheung,
I now begin a new challenge in pursuit of an even greater leap forward.
We will prepare Siheung for the next 100 years.
Through a spatial transformation, we will advance toward a city of one million.
Siheung is now preparing for a new leap beyond its current population of 600,000, toward a city of one million. At the heart of this is a bold spatial innovation that will rebuild the city's very framework.
The land in front of Siheung City Hall — long waiting to fulfill its potential — will now be awakened. We will develop a high-density mixed-use complex where administration, commerce, housing, and culture are perfectly integrated. We will turn the potential of a triple transit-oriented area — where the West Sea Line, Sinansan Line, and Gyeonggang Line converge — into reality, and elevate Siheung City Hall Station into the new heart of Siheung.
The areas around Podong's former salt flats, Wolgot Station, and Sinhyeon Station will be organically connected with the development of a horse racing venue. This will link urban areas that have long been disconnected. A horse racing venue integrated with K-pop and Korean culture will serve as a tax revenue engine that overcomes the fiscal constraints facing local governments and completes the city's infrastructure.
Furthermore, by connecting a light rail tram running north to south through Siheung — from Sinhyeon Station through Wolgot, Baegot, and Geobukseon Island — Siheung will reach a great turning point in its rise as a premier comprehensive leisure and tourism hub city.
The third-phase new towns of Siheung-Gwangmyeong and the Maehwa district will be developed into new residential and lifestyle hubs for the southwestern Greater Seoul area. We will attract anchor institutions — including large corporate research and development centers and national research institutes — to Siheung-Gwangmyeong Techno Valley, completing the solid foundation for a Siheung of one million where people settle and industries take root.
In addition, we will pursue systematic redevelopment and reconstruction in the Jeongwang-dong area through a master plan for aging planned cities, improving the quality of life for residents who have long been the backbone of the city. We will build a Siheung where housing and industry are seamlessly connected and everyone grows together.
Siheung must be the central city of the K-Moonshot project.
AI is both essential and a matter of survival. Four years ago, ChatGPT emerged and the world faced a new kind of challenge it had never encountered before.
But Siheung was among the first to prepare for the AI era. Last year the city was selected as a Gyeonggi Province AI Innovation Cluster city, and this year it exclusively secured the province's flagship physical AI diffusion center. Building on this foundation, we will bid to host the "Global UN AI Hub" — one of the K-Moonshot projects of the Lee Jae Myung administration — and make Siheung the AI capital of South Korea.
Siheung already has the optimal conditions. It is a key transportation hub connecting Incheon International Airport — the gateway to the world — with KTX Gwangmyeong Station, and it has stable power infrastructure including the world's largest tidal power plant at Lake Sihwa. Through diverse eco-friendly energy supply policies linked to the RE100 transition of the Sihwa industrial complex, Siheung will also become a model for a sustainable AI city.
We will complete a transportation network where all roads lead to Siheung.
The swift groundbreaking of the first section of the second metropolitan beltway will be the starting point. The construction of the second metropolitan beltway is a commitment of the South Korean government. I will exercise to the fullest the authority entrusted to me by our citizens as mayor of Siheung, doing everything possible to open roads to Siheung from every part of the Greater Seoul area.
We will also make the Baegot Bridge a reality. Through a transportation link connecting Siheung and Songdo, Siheung's Baegot and Incheon's Songdo will become the core axis of South Korea's biotech industry, where research, clinical trials, production, and global markets move in organic concert. I will never give up on realizing the Baegot Bridge for the development of Siheung and the nation.
Furthermore, the Sinansan Line and Gyeonggang Line, to be built in the years ahead, will make it possible to travel from Siheung to Yeouido in Seoul in under 25 minutes. Early advancement of the southwestern Greater Seoul area metropolitan railway private investment project will dramatically improve access to central Seoul, cut commute times for Siheung residents, and draw more companies and talent to the city.
We will rise as the central city of a West Sea megacity that embraces Lake Sihwa.
Siheung has been developing Lake Sihwa — the only lake in South Korea to have overcome environmental pollution and been reborn as a treasure trove of ecosystems — as a new engine of growth. We will now go a step further and establish Lake Sihwa as the Greater Seoul area's premier marine leisure hub.
We will complete without disruption the Ferris wheel and the country's largest aquarium project currently underway on Geobukseon Island in Lake Sihwa, and strengthen diverse cultural programs — including ecology forums and seminars and international surfing competitions — to establish the area as a stay-and-experience marine, leisure, and tourism hub.
We will also collaborate with the West Sea coastal cities of Siheung, Ansan, and Hwaseong to create an ultra-wide K-marine tourism industry cluster concentrated in leisure, tourism, and cultural industries. We will fulfill our role as the core city of a West Sea megacity, ensuring that the momentum generated at Lake Sihwa drives the development of all cities along the West Sea coast.
Respected citizens of Siheung — all 600,000 of you,
The era of Siheung is now.
Together with President Lee Jae Myung, National Assembly Speaker Jo Jeong-sik, Democratic Party supreme council member Moon Jeong-bok, and Gyeonggi Province Governor Choo Mi-ae, I will complete the happy transformation of Siheung. I will do my utmost to ensure that Siheung's future becomes one of the pillars of South Korea's development.
It is once again the citizens' time.
Together with the great 600,000 citizens of Siheung, I will build a new Siheung. The sole standard of city governance going forward will be the people's livelihood. When it comes to the happiness of our citizens, I will never compromise on anything.
Respected citizens!
You — who have overcome countless hardships and protected the Siheung of today — are the true owners of this city. With the authority and responsibility you have entrusted to me, I will build a proud city that its citizens can boast of. Using the past eight years as a foundation, I will build the sturdy pillars that will sustain Siheung for the next 100 years.
I will serve our citizens with an even humbler posture, and challenge the future with an even greater dream.
"K-Siheung — a city that represents the Republic of Korea." I will see it through without fail!
Thank you.
July 1, 2026
Im Byeong-taek, 15th Mayor of Siheung
pjh@heraldcorp.com
