Sejong City likely to be stripped of incentives

By Lee Tae-hoon

Staff reporter

A senior presidential secretary said Sunday that Sejong City will lose most of the business incentives that the government proposed for it earlier this year, if the revised development plan for the new town in South Chungcheong Province is rejected.

"If the National Assembly votes against the amendment, the government will have no choice but to try and carry out the original plan," Park Jae-wan, senior presidential secretary for state affairs planning, said on a state-run cable TV program.

Under the revision, a more business-friendly town was to have been built in the central region, instead of relocating nine ministries and four government agencies from Seoul there.

The secretary also underlined that Sejong City will likely lose many of the pre-arranged business deals if the Assembly decides to go ahead with the original plan, which was approved during the previous Roh Moo-hyun administration for decentralization.

"Most of the businesses decided to invest in Sejong City on the assumption that it would become a science and business belt, and be subject to numerous tax benefits and other incentives," Park said. "Should the original plan be implemented, many of the businesses will likely give up relocating their units to the new town."

In January, Prime Minister Chung Un-chan announced a revision plan, which includes the completion of the new city by 2020, 10 years earlier than initially scheduled and building it into an international science and business belt that would attract investments of up to 17 trillion won ($14 billion) over the next 20 years.

The ruling and opposition parties agreed last Wednesday to put a set of disputed bills on Sejong City to a vote at the legislature this month to decide on the fate of the development project.

Observers say the Assembly will likely vote down the bills as both opposition parties and many lawmakers in the governing Grand National Party (GNP) have expressed strong objections to their passage.

Amid mounting pressure to withdraw the government-proposed bills after the GNP's defeat in the June 2 local elections, President Lee Myung-bak urged the Assembly last Monday to decide on the fate of the project during the current parliamentary session.