Gimhae City Cancels or Scales Down Reading Events and Science Festivals One After Another

"Focusing Administrative Efforts on Overcoming COVID-19"

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kang Sharon] Gimhae City, Gyeongnam Province announced on the 28th that it will completely cancel the 'Gimhae Lifelong Learning Science Festival' scheduled for October and also reduce the scale of the 'Gimhae City Reading Festival.'

The city explained that this measure is to allocate administrative resources for the prevention of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and damage recovery. The city also decided to cancel the '2020 Gimhae City Youth Humanities Reading World Competition,' which was scheduled to be held in August, considering the safety of participants.

The Gimhae City Reading Festival is a reading culture festival promoted together by libraries, local bookstores, reading, culture, education, and civic organizations based on Gimhae City's infrastructure as a 'book-reading city,' which hosted the 'Korea Reading Festival' for the first time in the Yeongnam region in 2018.

With the reduction of this year's event, the remaining 100 million KRW out of the 200 million KRW project budget will be invested in COVID-19 damage recovery, and the canceled Gimhae Lifelong Learning Science Festival budget of 98 million KRW and the Youth Humanities Reading World Competition budget of 100 million KRW will also be used for COVID-19 damage recovery.

A Gimhae City official said, "We have inevitably reduced or canceled the scheduled festivals to ensure citizens' safety and prevent the spread of COVID-19," and added, "We ask for the understanding and cooperation of the citizens."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.