'Six Locations Including Chungbuk Goesan, Jeonnam Hwasun, and Gyeongbuk Yecheon Selected for Integrated Population Decline Support'

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced on the 10th that it has selected six local governments through a public contest to respond to the crisis of regional population decline: Goesan-gun in Chungbuk, Hwasun-gun in Jeonnam, Yecheon-gun in Gyeongbuk, Hadong-gun in Gyeongnam, Jinan-gun in Jeonbuk, and Gokseong-gun in Jeonnam.

This public contest project aims to solve the problems of regions experiencing rapid population decline due to the outflow of young and middle-aged populations and to overcome the deterioration of population structure caused by aging. It supports local-led vitality projects so that local governments can discover and promote projects suited to their regional circumstances.

Since March, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety conducted a contest targeting local governments in population-declining areas in four fields: population vitality, economic recovery, spatial innovation, and other ideas for creating spaces that help population inflow and regional revitalization. As a result, among a total of 19 submitted project plans, six were selected through document screening, on-site inspections, and presentation evaluations. This public contest project has a total scale of 6 billion KRW, providing 1 billion KRW per local government.

Goesan-gun in Chungbuk will promote a youth tourism vitality specialization project utilizing the abundant resources and cultural contents of the Suokjeong tourist site. To increase the inflow and vitality of the youth population, they plan to implement projects such as creating a book village, a traveler school with youth, branding, and youth startups to provide healthy jobs and homes.

Hwasun-gun in Jeonnam will promote the "Happy Youth Hwasun, Youth ZZZang Project" to provide step-by-step residential opportunities for youth and induce regional settlement. To this end, they will build and operate the Hwasun Youth House, facilitate communication with village residents, promote living experiences in Hwasun, organize the Exciting Hwasun Bus Tour, and provide customized education to attract youth population and enhance regional vitality.

Yecheon-gun in Gyeongbuk will implement the "Geumdangsil Youth Village Protection Project," which integrates sustainable content-centered projects into a village depressed by COVID-19. The strategy is to revitalize the local economy by utilizing regional cultural heritage and preserving the village community. To achieve this, they plan to operate youth local creators, develop an integrated village hotel management system, create small but certain happiness programs, conduct village image telling, and hold village festivals.

Hadong-gun in Gyeongnam aims to create a regional youth culture community hub facility centered on youth through the "Hadong Youth Center Stepping Stone Project," promoting regional vitality by activating youth startups, returning to farming, rural migration, and education. The project includes youth collaboration to build stepping stones and creating childcare spaces, the Stepping Stone Crossing Youth Dream Program, establishing a smart sharing platform with AI Match Cafe, and building the Stepping Stone Youth Culture Community.

Jinan-gun in Jeonbuk will focus on creating the "Youth with Honeybee House" project, a residential and startup space for youth, building an environment where young people can live and start businesses. They will construct youth share houses and multipurpose startup spaces, promote living experiences in Jinan-style rural areas, operate startup incubation schools, and establish a one-stop comprehensive platform for youth successful settlement. To this end, Jinan-gun has already prepared to actively promote the project by integrating related ordinances and organizations.

Gokseong-gun in Jeonnam will promote the Dodam Dodam Village Creation Project, which establishes a cooperative system among local governments, educational institutions, and the private sector to save the regional population and small rural schools. The project includes modular housing construction, cultural exchange space creation, and development of cultural exchange programs.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety has invested a total of 61 billion KRW in 30 local governments since 2017 through integrated support projects for population-declining areas, promoting various resident-led projects such as youth startups, job creation, and community revitalization. Additionally, to respond to the crisis of local extinction and population decline, the Special Act on Balanced National Development was amended last year to establish legal grounds for supporting population-declining areas. Going forward, the ministry plans to collaborate with related agencies to legislate laws supporting local extinction areas and to discover various project tasks.

Park Seong-ho, Director of the Local Autonomy and Decentralization Office, said, "We have continuously discovered local-led projects to solve the problems of population-declining areas," and added, "Since this is an urgent national issue, not just a local problem, we will actively support diverse and creative projects that can enhance regional vitality."

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