The Planning and Finance Committee of the South Jeolla-Gwangju Integrated Special City Council on Thursday urged the government to give the newly merged city priority in its upcoming second round of public institution relocation plans.
In a statement released that day, the committee said South Korea's first large-scale administrative merger was made possible because "3.2 million special city residents trusted the promises of the Lee Jae-myung administration and came together in a spirit of mutual prosperity." It urged the president and the government to honor their pledge to "prioritize the relocation of public institutions to the integrated local government."
The committee added that strong support for regions that have actively embraced government policy is essential to completing the national goal of balanced development and to encouraging other local governments to pursue integration.
The committee called on the government to formally enshrine in the second relocation plan a principle of preferential allocation for integrated regions and to implement it immediately. It also asked that public institutions be assigned at a scale exceeding that of the two original provinces combined, in keeping with the spirit of the broad administrative merger, to prevent reverse discrimination.
The committee further proposed that 10 key public institutions — including the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation and the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives — be placed in alignment with local industries, and that institutions related to technology development, talent cultivation and support for parts, materials and equipment companies be assigned to the region to ensure the success of the semiconductor mega project.
sij@heraldcorp.com
