Representative Ahn Ho-young Introduces First Bill: Special Act on National Balanced Development

Addition of Local Extinction Response Function to the National Balanced Development Committee

Ahn Ho-young, Member of the National Assembly (Democratic Party of Korea).

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Tae-in] A legal foundation is expected to be established for the sustainable development of population decline risk areas by enhancing local extinction response functions and establishing comprehensive national-level countermeasures.

Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Ahn Ho-young (Wanju·Jinan·Muju·Jangsu) announced on the 20th that he will introduce a partial amendment to the "Special Act on National Balanced Development" as the first bill to establish support policies for population decline risk areas.

According to Rep. Ahn, in the case of Jeonbuk Province, 11 out of 14 cities and counties are population decline risk areas with a disappearance index below 0.5, making it urgent to prepare countermeasures.

However, he diagnosed that government policies have been insufficient in preparing policy alternatives to prevent population decline and that there is a lack of awareness of the crisis regarding local extinction caused by population decline.

This amendment primarily strengthens the local extinction response function, which has been omitted from the regional balanced development policies of the National Balanced Development Committee.

Furthermore, the core of the system design is to establish and systematically operate various national support policies for the continuous growth and development of population decline risk areas.

Once designated as a population decline risk area, a national development plan must be established to improve living environments, expand social infrastructure, create resident income bases, and enhance education, medical care, and welfare.

Additionally, to support the National Balanced Development Committee’s work on population decline risk areas, a Population Decline Risk Support Group will be established within government ministries, and Regional Innovation Councils will be set up in metropolitan and basic local governments.

Rep. Ahn pointed out, “Population decline in local governments leads to a reduction in the economic scale of the local government, resulting in the suspension of essential social services such as medical care, transportation, education, and childcare, and the collapse of local industries, which ultimately makes the existence of local governments difficult.”

He emphasized, “It is necessary to designate population decline risk areas and integrate and support projects from various government ministries to improve residential conditions and expand living infrastructure for local residents, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of population decline risk areas.”

Along with this, Rep. Ahn added, “In addition to amending the Special Act on National Balanced Development, we will also promote the enactment of the ‘Special Act on Prevention of Local Extinction and Revitalization of Population Decline Areas’ to solve the problem of regional population decline.”

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