35 state bodies to be relocated to Sejong City

By Park Si-soo

Staff reporter

A total of 35 government agencies, including nine ministries, in Seoul will be moved to Sejong City being built about 100 kilometers south of the capital by 2014 as initially scheduled by the previous administration, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security said Monday.

“We will swiftly resume the relocation to Sejong and complete it by 2014 as originally scheduled. To establish the relevant legal grounds, we will announce the schedule in the gazette to be published next month,” Minister Maeng Hyung-kyu told reporters at his office in central Seoul.

Approximately 10,440 civil servants are expected to move to the city.

The Sejong City project was initiated in 2005 by the late former President Roh Moo-hyun, who made the relocation one of the centerpieces of his presidential campaign in order to decentralize Seoul and promote development in other regions of the country.

Maeng said he will announce minor changes to the plan next month ― to streamline the relocation some agencies will be merged or abolished.

Once halted by President Lee Myung-bak’s push to repeal the plan, the country’s largest construction site has seen little more than leveling and grading work being done. To meet the tight time schedule, the government will speed up construction of the new administrative hub.

“To shorten the time for construction as much as possible, we will streamline administrative processes,” the minister said.

Among the state bodies to be relocated are the Prime Minister’s Office; the Ministry of Strategy and Finance; the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs; the Ministry of Knowledge Economy; the Ministry of Environment; the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology; the Ministry of Health and Welfare; the Ministry of Employment and Labor; the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism; and the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Others include the Ministry of Government Legislation; the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs; the National Tax Service; the Fair Trade Commission; the National Emergency Management Agency and Korea Post.

The locations for agencies in connection with national security, diplomacy and defense will remain unchanged.

Former President Roh pushed for the relocation plan, despite strong protests from opposition leaders, to fundamentally address the chronic population density of Seoul, a sprawling metropolitan and suburban area that’s home to nearly half of South Korea’s 49 million people and to promote development of other regions of the country.

But his successor Lee pledged to strike down the plan from the beginning of his presidency, claiming the decentralized government agencies will lead to critical inefficiency in state administration.

Amid intensifying political furor between Lee’s ruling Grand National Party (GNP) and opposition Democratic Party (DP), the GNP submitted a bill to convert the city into a science-business hub instead. But the National Assembly voted down the bill 164-105 last month, reinstating the original plan.

The city is named after the 15th-century King Sejong of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), who was behind the creation of the Korean alphabet.