Lee meets elected regional leaders for first time, pushes balanced national development

President Lee Jae Myung met Wednesday with the governors and mayors of South Korea's metropolitan regions for the first time since their election in the ninth round of local elections, moving to map out concrete steps toward locally led growth and balanced national development. The meeting came a day after Lee stressed the need to overcome the Greater Seoul area's dominance at a Cabinet meeting, marking a second consecutive day of emphasis on regional development.

Lee chaired the 10th Central-Local Cooperation Council at Cheong Wa Dae on Wednesday. It was the second such meeting since the current administration took office, convening regional leaders again roughly nine months after the first session last November.

The meeting focused on strengthening cooperation between the central and local governments as governing partners and on charting a direction for locally driven growth.

Central government officials attending included Prime Minister Han Seong-sook, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Koo Yun-cheol, and Minister of Interior and Safety Yun Ho-jung.

From local government, attendees included Park Chan-dae, chairman of the Korea Mayors and Governors Association and mayor of Incheon, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon, and Jo Jae-gu, chairman of the Korean Association of Mayors, County Heads and District Mayors and district mayor of Nam-gu, Daegu, along with other regional leaders.

The agenda opened with a report by Interior and Safety Minister Yun on central-local cooperation plans for the ninth term of elected local governments, followed by a presentation by Office for Government Policy Coordination Director Im Gi-geun on a framework for locally led growth. Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan then presented plans to cultivate regional growth engines linked to three major megaprojects, and Planning and Budget Minister Park Hong-keun outlined the fiscal investment direction for balanced regional growth.

Local governments took the lead in presenting their own regional growth strategies at the meeting. Governors and mayors from all 16 regions unveiled locally tailored success strategies reflecting each area's conditions and strengths, after which central and local officials held an open discussion on implementation.

The session signaled a shift in the administration's approach to balanced development — away from the central government dictating uniform regional plans and toward a model in which local governments design their own growth strategies based on regional characteristics, with the central government providing fiscal and policy support.

Lee had also highlighted balanced national development as a core policy priority on Tuesday.

At the Cabinet meeting, Lee said balanced development was "a gateway that must be crossed for South Korea's sustainable growth and a qualitative improvement in the lives of our people," adding that it was also "the path to resolving the many problems stemming from the concentration of resources in the Greater Seoul area, including real estate issues."

He said that among the many challenges facing South Korea, "the most fundamental is the single-hub structure centered on the Greater Seoul area," warning that "if this single-hub structure is not overcome, the metropolitan area will be overwhelmed while the regions face the danger of disappearing."