The government has decided to establish South Korea's second major semiconductor production hub on the site of the Gwangju military airport relocation. The decision is a national strategy to strengthen advanced-industry competitiveness and marks a pivotal turning point for the newly launched South Jeolla Province-Gwangju integrated special city as it positions itself as a future growth engine. Yeongam-gun welcomes the decision.
Yet balanced national development and the success of the integrated special city cannot be achieved through the growth of any single region alone. South Korea's advanced-industry competitiveness can only be fully realized when Gwangju's semiconductor industry and the RE100 energy transition in Yeongam and Haenam's Solaseado move forward together.
The time has come for a new national strategy built on local energy self-sufficiency — one in which companies consume electricity in the very regions that produce renewable energy, and that energy in turn drives local growth.
When companies relocate to regions rich in renewable energy, they can achieve RE100 compliance at competitive prices. The government, in turn, can reduce the enormous investment and social costs of building transmission and distribution networks to send electricity to the greater Seoul area. This path advances industrial competitiveness and balanced national development at the same time. Yeongam and Haenam's Solaseado stand at its center.
Yeongam and Haenam's Solaseado has been developed as an enterprise city for more than two decades. With abundant sunshine and wind, expansive industrial land, and an established industrial base that includes the Daebul National Industrial Complex and HD Hyundai Samho, it is South Korea's premier candidate site for an energy transition. The vision is not merely a region that produces renewable energy, but an RE100 mixed-use city where companies and people converge and industry and urban life grow together on a renewable energy foundation.
Yeongam has already begun preparing to turn the energy transition into reality. The Daebul National Industrial Complex has been selected for the government's industrial complex energy self-sufficiency infrastructure project and is pursuing conversion into an RE100 industrial complex.
The county is building a distributed energy system using a public virtual power plant. Together with HD Hyundai Samho, it is developing a new future-industry ecosystem by adding an offshore wind power equipment sector on top of the existing shipbuilding industry's competitive base.
These changes point not only to Yeongam's transformation but to a new direction for South Korea's industrial complexes as a whole. Gwangju's semiconductor industry and the energy transition in Yeongam and Haenam are not in competition — they are complementary pillars of shared growth.
Gwangju has semiconductors, a future advanced industry; Yeongam has the renewable energy to sustain that industry over the long term. When semiconductors and energy are linked as a single future-industry belt, the South Jeolla Province-Gwangju integrated special city can grow into the country's leading advanced-industry hub.
Active government support is essential to make this happen. Yeongam and Haenam's Solaseado must be developed into South Korea's first renewable-energy self-sufficient city and RE100 industrial base, and a national renewable energy industry cluster linked to Gwangju's semiconductor sector must be established. Core national infrastructure — power grids, transportation networks and research and development facilities — must also be expanded in tandem.
The South Jeolla Province-Gwangju integrated special city must not stop at merging administrative boundaries. It must become a new national development model in which industry and energy, companies and people, all grow together. When Gwangju's semiconductor industry and the RE100 energy transition in Yeongam and Haenam's Solaseado advance in concert, the integrated special city will become more competitive and balanced national development will at last be substantively achieved.
The energy transition is not a policy that merely changes how electricity is generated. It is a national innovation strategy that redraws South Korea's industrial map and restructures a growth model centered on the greater Seoul area. What is needed now is not competition between regions but cooperation built on a clear division of roles.
Gwangju's semiconductors and Yeongam and Haenam's RE100 energy transition are not substitutes for each other — they are partners in a future industry that must grow together. Both balanced national development and the success of the integrated special city will be built on that connection.
Yeongam-gun will continue working alongside Gwangju to forge a new growth axis for South Korea's future industries, and will spare no effort in building a new model of balanced national development grounded in the energy transition and a locally circulating economy.
sij@heraldcorp.com
