Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said on the 16th that the successful launch of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Metropolitan City will serve as a model for other regions in Korea that hope for integration and will be an important indicator to gauge our administration's regional innovation performance.
On this day at the Bitgaram Complex Culture and Sports Center in Naju, South Jeolla Province, the prime minister presided over a meeting with related agencies to prepare for the launch of the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Metropolitan City and stated accordingly.
The prime minister said, "Metropolitan administrative integration is a core national task of the popular sovereignty government to overcome the single-pole system of the greater Seoul area and achieve balanced national development under the 5 poles and 3 special zones," adding, "Jeonnam-Gwangju will be reborn as a mega-regional innovation hub, ranking third among metropolitan governments with a gross regional domestic product (GRDP) of 159 trillion won and fifth nationwide with a population of 3.17 million."
He added, "We will not stop at supporting the launch, but will strengthen the central government's cooperation and support until the integrated metropolitan city grows into a truly regional hub, and we will work with local governments so it can become a model of regional innovation in which the provinces design their own growth strategies."
Min Hyung-bae, the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Metropolitan City mayor-elect who attended the event, said, "South Jeolla and Gwangju making a fresh start as a single living area and a single administrative system is a historic shift," adding, "We will change the lives of special citizens through overwhelming growth and establish a citizen-sovereignty government in which citizens become the real owners of local government."
Kim Dae-jung, the Jeonnam-Gwangju Integrated Metropolitan City superintendent-elect, said, "For the integrated metropolitan city to succeed, educational autonomy is essential," adding, "Even if we build an innovation city and attract corporations, people keep leaving, and the only reason is education."
He continued, "It is no longer an era in which industry calls people; it is an era in which education draws people and corporations," adding, "Please expand educational autonomy befitting the integrated metropolitan city."