Assemblyman Lee Byung-hoon Proposes Amendment to the "Special Act on the Creation of Asia Culture Center City"

Extension of Legal Validity Period for Jeondang Organization Integration Coordination and Cultural City Projects

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] Congressman Lee Byung-hoon (Democratic Party of Korea·Gwangju Dongnam-eul) announced on the 13th that he has proposed a revision bill to the "Special Act on the Creation of the Asia Culture Centered City."

The revision bill mainly includes integrated coordination of the organization of the National Asia Culture Center as a permanent government institution and extending the legal validity period of the cultural city project until 2031.

Last June, Congressman Lee proposed a revision bill to extend the delegation of the operation of the Asia Culture Center to a corporation for five more years.

The bill proposed this time by Congressman Lee Byung-hoon deletes the content related to the "incorporation" of the center, defining it as a government-affiliated institution, and also extends the validity period of the special law, currently until 2026, to 2031, laying the foundation for the normalization of the center's operation.

The Asia Culture Center is a large-scale national project, a core project of the "Asia Culture Centered City Creation Project," with a total investment of 1.1 trillion won including construction costs of 706.4 billion won.

The center barely opened in November 2015 after going through many ups and downs during two government administrations, but it still has not fulfilled its role.

At the time in 2015, before the center was even opened, the government revised the special law on the premise of incorporating the center, which led to criticism that the Asia Culture Center project was being distorted and downsized.

The current law, revised at that time, stipulates that the center is "partially delegated" to a corporation for operation from 2015 to 2020, and after evaluation, it will be "fully delegated." Full delegation means incorporation.

However, concerns have been raised that incorporation could infringe on the public nature of the center and cause serious operational obstacles due to the difficulty of securing finances while the new institution has not yet stabilized.

This revision bill focuses on integrated operation of the Asia Culture Center as a government-affiliated institution. It also clearly distinguishes the functions and roles of the Asia Culture Center and the newly established "Cultural Foundation."

The Asia Culture Center performs public functions such as research on Asian culture, content creation, education, and human resource development, while the Cultural Foundation operates profit-making businesses such as children's experience and education facilities, content distribution, tourism product development and promotion, convenience facility operation, and audience services.

Separately, a supplementary provision states that current employees of the Asia Culture Institute will have their employment succeeded by the center and the Cultural Foundation to prevent existing employees from suffering personnel disadvantages.

Congressman Lee said, "The Asia Culture Center should be operated according to its original purpose of creating new growth engines and realizing national wealth through culture," and emphasized, "To operate it as a national project, it is essential to make it a government-affiliated institution and extend the special law period."

He added, "I hope this revision will pass smoothly through the National Assembly's discussion process and that the Asia Culture Center will actively conduct research on Asian culture and content creation as a core project of the cultural city."

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