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| Gwangju Mayor Lee Yong-seop speaks during a press conference at City Hall, Feb. 18, to respond to People Power Party presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol's pledge to build a large shopping complex in the city. Newsis |
By Ko Dong-hwan
Gwangju Metropolitan City Mayor Lee Yong-seop criticized People Power Party (PPP) presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol and the party's leader Lee Jun-seok for their common pledge to build a large shopping mall in the city, calling it "populism politics mindful of votes" in the run-up to the March 9 presidential election.
Talking to reporters at City Hall, Feb. 21, the mayor blasted the main opposition politicians for their unwelcome intervention in the city's affairs, adding the presidential hopeful and the party leader must consider "more impending, serious issues like relocating the city's military airbase, developing the city on par with the U.S. Silicon Valley and introducing a manufacturing cluster for eco-friendly car parts."
"I don't understand why the politicians are nosing around our city affairs," the mayor said. "We control the licensing rights for our city's local businesses and have been planning to build a large shopping complex that caters to both local residents and business operators. Their meddling only poses a nuisance to us. It doesn't spur the process, it doesn't help and it isn't right."
The mayor held a press conference at City Hall previously on Feb. 18 to respond to Yoon's controversial pledge, saying that building a new shopping complex in the city is "the local mayor's responsibility to discuss with local residents." It was his initial hint for Yoon to step back.
Yoon pledged to build a shopping mall in the city on Feb. 16 during a campaign stop in Songjeong Market, a traditional street market in Gwangju. There, he also claimed that the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has been objecting to the idea, saying "The politicians don't have the right to reject what all citizens want." PPP leader Lee grabbed the baton shortly after, announcing his plan to visit the city on Feb. 22 to meet local residents at a local coffee shop to discuss the idea.
In response to the PPP party leader's visit, the mayor accused him of "leisurely tinkering with something a local government is supposed to handle."
"He is clearly going for votes," the mayor said, urging him to take care of more urgent problems linked to the city.
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| Yoon Suk-yeol meets people at Songjeong Market in Gwangju during a campaign stop, Feb. 16. Newsis |
There are currently three major department stores and 22 large stores in the city, but no warehouse megastores like Costco or more casual malls like Starfield, which the city's residents desperately want, according to the mayor. That's why the city has been planning a large shopping complex, called Green Smart Fun City.
The mayor said the complex might harm the city's small- to medium-size business operators who have been badly hurt by COVID-19's economic impact but it is also what many city residents want. "We are thus planning the new shopping mall so that it will minimize its impact on small business owners and also solve our local residents' growing demand," Mayor Lee said.
He also accused Yoon of falsely claiming during his campaign speech on Feb. 16 that the city recorded the lowest GDP in the country. Yoon had said that the DPK "kept making empty promises that they will make Gwangju and South Jeolla Province prosper but Gwangju's GDP is the lowest in the country."
The mayor said the politician has damaged the public image of the city, which is a symbol of the country's democratization in the 1980s, and hurt citizens' feelings. The mayor also said using GDP isn't appropriate to compare the economic competitiveness of cities and said gross regional domestic product (GRDP) must be used instead.
Data from Statistics Korea contradicts Yoon's claim. In 2020, Gwangju's GRDP ranked 15th out of 17 Korean cities at 41.64 trillion won ($34.8 billion), ahead of Busan and Daegu. Meanwhile, per capita income the same year also ranked the city fourth (21.28 million won), behind only Seoul, Ulsan and Daejeon. The figure was even higher than the national average (21.20 million won).
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