Regional Development Projects Planned
By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
The administration plans to build industrial and tourism complexes near the border between the two Koreas and on coastal areas as part of efforts to transform the country into an Asian economic hub.
Ministries and state institutes are currently working together to come up with a master plan in the first half of next year, the Presidential Committee on Regional Development said Wednesday.
The committee reported the draft plan to President Lee Myung-bak at a policy coordination meeting at the Office of North Gyeongsang Province in Daegu.
The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) called the project another of Lee's mega engineering schemes that will only benefit large builders and corporate giants at the expense of public interests.
"It is a hurriedly made, half-baked plan aimed at calming growing public anger toward the government's move to replace Sejong City with an industrial belt," said a DP spokesman.
The National Assembly is set to hold budgetary sessions to review the $19-billion plan to refurbish four major rivers nationwide, with opposition parties demanding significant cuts.
It is not yet known how much the government will spend on the new regional development projects.
According to the draft plan, the administration will develop the areas near the Demilitarized Zone into an "eco-peace" belt that will house facilities for inter-Korean projects and environmental protection.
The country's southern coast will be turned into a logistics and tourism belt, becoming home to leading shipbuilding and petro-chemical companies and airlines.
Taking advantage of the scenic areas, hundreds of islets and wetlands, the administration will build resort facilities along the coast to attract foreign tourists.
The western coast will house firms specialized in "state-of-the-art" technologies.
An energy and tourism belt will be built on the eastern coast to make it the center for "green growth" companies, the committee said.
The administration plans to spend 9 billion won ($7.8 million) next year to pay the institutes working on the project, said Choi Sang-chul, the committee's chairman.